Figure 1

SEM images (gray) and images obtained by confocal microscopy (colored insets) of three different colloidal particles (regular trimer, regular tetramer, and irregular trimer) and the corresponding hydrodynamic friction tensors $\mathcal{H}$ determined in experiments and predicted for idealized particle shapes by hydrodynamic calculations using hydrosub. The tensors shown are given in dimensions $\left[{\mathcal{H}}_{i,j=1,2,3}\right]=\mu \mathrm{m}$, $\left[{\mathcal{H}}_{j=4,5,6}^{i=1,2,3}\right]=\left[{\mathcal{H}}_{j=1,2,3}^{i=4,5,6}\right]=\mu {\mathrm{m}}^2$, and $\left[{\mathcal{H}}_{i,j=4,5,6}\right]=\mu {\mathrm{m}}^3$. The four $3\times 3$ submatrices of $\mathcal{H}$ contain the translational friction coefficients (upper left), the rotational friction coefficients (lower right), and the translational-rotational friction coefficients for the coupling of translational and rotational motion (upper right and lower left). Since $\mathcal{H}$ depends on the center-of-mass position and orientation of the particles, the coordinate systems used are illustrated. For the diagonal elements of $\mathcal{H}$, the statistical error of the experimental data is $3\%$ for the regular trimer and tetramer and $10\%$ for the irregular trimer. The absolute statistical error of the off-diagonal elements is 1 and 5, respectively, in the given units.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

Time evolution of ten representative correlation functions $C_{ij}\left(t\right)$ for the irregular trimer determined in experiments (upper row) and predicted from a simulation (lower row) based on the idealized hydrodynamic friction tensor (see Fig. 1). The insets in the lower left plot show the same quantities on linear scales.Reuse & Permissions