We present experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the collective behavior of submicrometer-sized particles immersed in a nematic micellar solution. We use latex spheres with diameters ranging from 190 to 780 nm and study their aggregation properties due to the interplay of the various colloidal forces at work in the system. We found that the morphology of aggregates strongly depends on the particle size, with evidence for two distinct regimes: the biggest inclusions clump together within minutes into either compact clusters or V-like structures that are completely consistent with attractive elastic interactions. On the contrary, the smallest particles form chains elongated along the nematic axis, within comparable timescales. In this regime, Monte Carlo simulations, based on a modified diffusion-limited cluster aggregation model, strongly suggest that the anisotropic rotational Brownian motion of the clusters combined with short-range depletion interactions dominate the system coarsening; elastic interactions no longer prevail. The simulations reproduce the sharp transition between the two regimes on increasing the particle size. We provide reasonable estimates to interpret our data and propose a likely scenario for colloidal aggregation. These results emphasize the growing importance of the diffusion of species at suboptical-wavelength scales and raise a number of fundamental issues.
Keywords: colloidal dispersion; elasticity; liquid crystal.