TRR 6:  Physics of Colloidal Dispersions in External Fields

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: from 2002 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485412

The collaborative research centre/Transregio 6 deals with the physics of colloidal dispersions, which are solutions or suspensions of mesoscopic solid particles with typical sizes ranging from 1 nm to 1 µm with a stable (i.e. non-fluctuating) core embedded in a molecular solvent. Among the various soft matter systems, colloidal dispersions play a prominent role because they can be both prepared and characterized in a controlled way. The effective interaction between the colloidal particles can be tailored. Moreover, colloidal suspensions can be regarded as the simplest prototype of soft matter. Exiting questions concern collective many-body effects induced by cooperation and self-organization of many particles. A striking advantage of colloidal dispersions lies in fact that these questions can be studied simultaneously by using three different complementary methods, namely experiment, computer simulation, and theory. In the Transregio, the structural and dynamical behaviour of colloidal dispersions in various external fields (electric, magnetic, laser optical, shear, confinement) will be explored both in equilibrium and in non-equilibrium.
This Transregio is the first "collaborative research centre" in which Dutch institutes participate.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• International Connection: Netherlands

Completed projects

• A01 - Mixtures of Particles with Complex Architecture in Shear Flow (Project Heads Dhont, Jan Karel George ;  Lettinga, Minne Paul )
• A02 - "Tunable" Model Systems for Soft Colloids (Project Heads Richter, Dieter ;  Stellbrink, Jörg ;  Willner, Lutz )
• A04 - Colloidal Soft Matter under Shear Flow (Project Heads Gompper, Gerhard ;  Winkler, Roland G. )
• A05 - Computer Simulations of Structure, Dynamics, and Phase Behavior of Colloidal Fluids in Confined Geometry and under Shear (Project Heads Binder, Kurt ;  Horbach, Jürgen ;  Virnau, Peter )
• A06 - Time-Dependent Flow in Arrested States (Project Heads Brader, Ph.D., Joseph M. ;  Egelhaaf, Stefan U. ;  Fuchs, Matthias )
• A07 - Force-Driven Micro- and Macro-Rheology (Project Heads Fuchs, Matthias ;  Voigtmann, Thomas )
• B01 - Structure and Transport Properties of Charged Sphere Suspensions in Electric Fields (Project Head Palberg, Thomas )
• B02 - Electrokinetic Properties of Charged Colloids in External Fields (Project Head Nägele, Gerhard )
• B3 - Time-Dependent Mean-Field Theory: The Dynamics of Charged Colloids (Project Heads von Grünberg, Hans Hennig ;  Klein, Rudolf )
• B04 - Computer simulation of electrokinetics in colloidal systems (Project Head Dünweg, Burkhard )
• B07 - Colloids in crossed electric and magnetic fields (Project Heads Butt, Hans-Jürgen ;  Schmidt, Annette M. ;  Vollmer, Doris )
• B08 - Phase Transitions of Confined Nanorods in Electric Fields (Project Heads van Blaaderen, Alfons ;  Dijkstra, Marjolein ;  Imhof, Arnout ;  van Roij, René ;  Vanmaekelbergh, Daniel )
• B09 - Computer simulations of charged colloids in alternating electric fields (Project Head Schmid, Friederike )
• C01 - Dynamics of autonomous swimmers in confinement (Project Heads Erbe, Artur Philipp Nikolaus ;  Leiderer, Paul )
• C02 - Two-dimensional colloidal systems in anisotropic magnetic fields or in light fields (Project Heads Keim, Peter ;  Maret, Georg )
• C03 - Phase Transitions of Two-Dimensional Paramagnetic Colloids in Extrernal Fields (Project Heads Likos, Christos N. ;  Löwen, Hartmut )
• C04 - Effect of modulated boundaries on structure formation near the liquid-solid transition in equilibrium and under shear (Project Heads Binder, Kurt ;  Maret, Georg ;  Nielaba, Peter )
• C5 - Hydrodynamically Coupled Colloidal Motors (Project Heads Gisler, Thomas ;  Maret, Georg ;  Stark, Holger )
• C07 - Concentrated Colloidal Suspensions in Modulated Light Fields (Project Head Egelhaaf, Stefan U. )
• D01 - Confined colloidal crystals in and out of equilibrium (Project Heads Löwen, Hartmut ;  Messina, René ;  Palberg, Thomas ;  Schöpe, Hans Joachim )
• D03 - Differently shaped hard body colloids in confinement: from walls to porous media (Project Heads Löwen, Hartmut ;  Wensink, Henricus H. )
• D05 - Mixtures of Rod-like and Spherical Colloids under Confinement: Phase Transition Kinetics (Project Heads Binder, Kurt ;  Schilling, Tanja )
• D06 - Structure formation in columnar mineral liquid crystals in confinement (Project Heads Lekkerkerker, Henk N.W. ;  Petoukhov, Andrei ;  Vroege, Gert Jan )
• N01 - Colloids at Fluid interfaces (Project Head Oettel, Martin )
• Z01 - Administration of the SFB/TR 6 (Project Head Löwen, Hartmut )

• Applicant Institution: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
• Participating Institution: Forschungszentrum Jülich; Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung
• Co-Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Universiteit Utrecht; Universität Konstanz
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Hartmut Löwen