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Inverse Density Functional Theory As An Interpretive Tool For Measuring Colloid-Surface Interactions In Dense Systems, David M. Ford, Mingqing Lu, Michael A. Bevan

David M Ford

Recent advances in optical microscopy, such as total internal reflection and confocal scanning laser techniques, now permit the direct three-dimensional tracking of large numbers of colloidal particles both near and far from interfaces. A novel application of this technology, currently being developed by one of the authors under the name of diffusing colloidal probe microscopy (DCPM), is to use colloidal particles as probes of the energetic characteristics of a surface. A major theoretical challenge in implementing DCPM is to obtain the potential energy of a single particle in the external field created by the surface, from the measured particle trajectories …