Unexpected slow near wall dynamics of spherical colloids in a suspension of rods.

In this paper, we will show the influence of an additional rodlike component, that is, fd-virus, on the diffusion of spherical polystyrene colloids close to a wall. The sphere diffusivity normal to the wall, D perpendicular, is strongly affected by the presence of the rods, while the effect on the parallel diffusivity, D||, is less pronounced except in the immediate vicinity of the wall. We show that this observation cannot be explained by describing the effect of the rods as a simple mean field depletion potential alone.