Amir Amini, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005 and Marc Robert, Rice Quantum Institute, and Richard E. Smally Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005.
Phase behavior of mixtures of colloidal particles and non-adsorbing polymer chains bounded to two dimensions with various polymer to colloid size ratios are investigated. Mixtures are trapped at an air-water interface and pressure-area isotherms are obtained using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. Different regions of the phase diagram are explored by changing the temperature and the concentration of the colloid and the polymer. A Perturbation theory is then developed to explain the experimental results.