Eur. Phys. J. E (2010) 33: 291-296
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2010-10671-6

Regular Article

Light-driven oscillations of entangled nematic colloidal chains

¹ Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
² Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
³ Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, 0X13NP, Oxford, UK

^* e-mail: igor.musevic@ijs.si

Received: 18 June 2010
Accepted: 19 October 2010
Published online: 7 November 2010

Abstract

Laser tweezers have been used to drive the oscillations of a chain of entangled colloidal particles in the nematic liquid crystal 5CB. The amplitude and phase of light-driven oscillations have been determined for the motion of individual colloidal particles. The collective motion of 4.8μm silica particles is highly damped for a driving frequency above 0.5Hz. The results were compared to an effective bead-spring model, where the motion of elastically coupled particles is hindered by viscous damping and hydrodynamic coupling. Qualitative agreement between theory and experiment was obtained.