This paper reviews ‘entropic patchiness’ of colloidal particles. On the one hand this may be due to their intrinsic tendency to form certain shape-dependent configurations in crowded suspensions, on the other hand this can be strongly enhanced by using depletion interactions that are also of purely entropic origin. A brief account of the Onsager theory and its consequences for the formation of colloidal liquid crystals of highly anisometric particles is presented. It is further supplemented by a recap of the description of depletion attraction between colloids and the effects of their shape. A number of recent examples exploiting entropic patchiness are discussed.

中文翻译：

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熵斑：胶体形状和耗竭的影响

本文综述了胶体颗粒的“熵斑块”。一方面，这可能是由于它们固有的趋势，即在拥挤的悬浮液中形成某些形状相关的构型，另一方面，这可以通过使用也是纯熵来源的耗竭相互作用来大大增强。简要介绍了Onsager理论及其对高度不等距颗粒的胶体液晶形成的影响。胶体之间的耗尽引力及其形状影响的描述可以作为补充。讨论了许多利用熵斑块的最新示例。