Thermophoresis of microemulsion droplets: Size dependence of the Soret effect

Abstract

Thermophoresis, akin to thermal diffusion in simple fluid mixtures, consists of particle drift induced by a temperature gradient. Notwithstanding its practical interest, the dependence of thermophoretic effects on particle size R is still theoretically and experimentally debated. By performing measurements of water-in-oil microemulsion droplets with tunable size, we show that the thermal diffusion coefficient, at least for a suspension of small particles in a nonpolar solvent, does not appreciably depend on R .