Effective Interactions in Mixtures of Silica Microspheres and Polystyrene Nanoparticles

We investigate the effect of small concentrations of highly charged nanoparticles on the stability of uncharged colloidal microspheres using large-scale simulations. Employing pair potentials that accurately represent mixtures of silica microspheres and polystyrene nanoparticles as studied experimentally, we are able to demonstrate that nanoparticle-induced stabilization can arise from a relatively weak van der Waals attraction between the colloids and nanoparticles. This demonstrates that the nanoparticle haloing mechanism for colloidal stabilization is of considerable generality and potentially can be applied to large classes of systems. The range of optimal nanoparticle concentrations can be tuned by controlling the attraction between colloids and nanoparticles.