Entropic Attraction and Repulsion in Binary Colloids Probed with a Line Optical Tweezer

The long-range entropic forces that arise between two micrometer-sized colloidal spheres in a fluid of much smaller colloidal spheres were directly measured using a line-scanned optical tweezer. This new technique allowed us to measure the functional form of the potential with sub-kBT energy and 15 nm spatial resolution. At the lowest small sphere concentrations, the potential was monotonically attractive, while at higher concentrations an oscillatory potential was observed, due to the liquid structure of the small spheres. Surprisingly, the large spheres came together only rarely at the higher concentrations, suggesting a new means for stabilizing suspensions using entropy alone. [S0031-9007(99)09246-7]