| Interactions and collective behavior are investigated for two systems of attractive colloidal rods and colloidal stars. Attractive colloidal rods are constructed by grafting the temperature-sensitive polymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) to the surface of the semi-flexible filamentous fd virus. The phase diagram of fd-PNIPAM system becomes independent of ionic strength at high salt concentration and low temperature, i.e., the rods are sterically stabilized by the polymer. However, the network of rods undergoes a sol-gel transition as the temperature is raised. The viscoelastic moduli of fd and fd-PNIPAM suspensions are compared as a function of temperature, and the effect of ionic strength on the gelling behavior of fd-PNIPAM solution is measured. For all fluidlike and solidlike samples, the frequency-dependant linear viscoelastic moduli can be scaled onto universal master curves.;Colloidal stars are constructed by grafting to 1 mum polystyrene beads a dense brush of 1 mum long and 10 nm wide semi-flexible filamentous viruses. The pair interaction potentials of colloidal stars are measured using an experimental implementation of umbrella sampling, a technique originally developed in computer simulations in order to probe rare events. The influence of ionic strength and grafting density on the interaction is measured. Good agreements are found between the measured interactions and theoretical predictions based upon the osmotic pressure of counterions. |
