Correlated motion of semiflexible colloidal bead chains

Abstract

Polystyrene colloids brushed with polyacrylic acid were prepared. From these particles, colloidal bead chains were prepared by aligning the particles using electric fi?elds. The thermal fluctuations of the bond angles in these chains were studied. It was found that these fluctuations are independent of each other; there are no correlated fluctuations. In addition, the diffusion tensor of colloidal bead chains was measured in a quasi-two-dimensional setting. The diffusion tensor was found to contain two distinct diagonal components, as would be expected for an approximately rod-like object, but the off-diagonal components were found to vanish within the experimental uncertainty.