Neutron Scattering Study of Depletion Interactions in a Colloid-Polymer Mixture

Abstract
We report a neutron scattering study of depletion interactions in a mixture of colloid and nonadsorbing polymer. It is found that the measured colloidal structure factor can be well described by an effective interaction potential for the polymer-induced depletion attraction between the colloidal particles. The amplitude of the attraction is found to increase linearly with the polymer concentration but it levels off at higher polymer concentrations.