Properties of fractal colloid aggregates

Abstract

We study the influence of the fractal structure on the physical properties of colloidal gold aggregates. The optical properties are strongly influenced by both the long- and the short-range correlations of the aggregate structure, as well as the electronic plasma resonance of the gold particles. The absorption of the aggregates is dominated by the electromagnetic interaction between nearest-neighbour particles. The angular dependence of the polarized scattering reflects the long-range fractal correlations of the particles in the clusters, while that of the depolarized scattering reflects the short-range correlations of the local field corrections. The fractal structure also affects dynamic light scattering, so that rotational diffusion effects play an important role in the decay of the autocorrelation function. Finally, we show that the very tenuous nature of the fractal structure makes the aggregates quite susceptible to deformation under shear stress.