Particle-resolved instabilities in colloidal dispersions

Abstract

For colloidal dispersions, recent progress in observing, understanding and describing instabilities resolved on the length scale of the individual particles is summarized. The instabilities are induced and triggered by external driving fields. Various kinds of instabilities are discussed, including the buckling transition of a colloidal monolayer, lane and band formation in oppositely driven binary mixtures, the classic Rayleigh–Taylor instability and clustering in rod-like systems under nonequilibrium. Particularly, the role of complementary approaches, like real-space experiments, computer simulations and theory is emphasized.