Nonsingular van der Waals potentials

First-principles theory of van der Waals forces between macroscopic bodies

We present a first-principles method for the determination of the van der Waals interactions for a collection of finite-sized macroscopic bodies. The method is based on fluctuational electrodynamics and a rigorous multiple-scattering method for the electromagnetic field. As such, the method takes fully into account retardation, many-body, multipolar, and near-fields effects. By application of the method to the case of two metallic nanoparticles, we demonstrate the breakdown of the standard 1/r(2) distance law as the van der Waals force decays exponentially with distance when the nanoparticles are too close or too far apart.

Nonsingular van der Waals Potential and Its Contributions to Gravitational Coagulation

The coagulation and the stability of dilute colloids at high Péclet number were studied in consideration of the universal nonsingular van der Waals interactions recently developed by J. X. Lu and W. H. Marlow (1995, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1724). The capture efficiency of gravitational coagulation of uncharged colloids was found to be diminished due to the effect of finite molecular size (EFMS). The gravitational coagulation stability diagram of charged colloids was also found to be shifted when the gravitational convection was much stronger than the Brownian diffusion. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.