Fig. 2. Spectral selective effective potential of dye-sensitized-colloid modulated with illumination.

a–c, The fitted apparent pair potentials of LEG4–LEG4 sensitized (a), SQ2–SQ2 sensitized (b) and LEG4–SQ2 sensitized TiO₂ colloids (c) under blue light (440–480 nm) illumination with various intensity (10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 mW cm⁻²). d–f, The fitted apparent pair potentials of SQ2–SQ2 sensitized (d), LEG4–LEG4 sensitized (e) and LEG4–SQ2 sensitized TiO₂ colloids (f) under red light (640–660 nm) illumination with various intensities (10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 mW cm⁻²). The particle–particle distance r is normalized by particle diameter σ. Insets show the linear dependence of particle’s bonding strength to the illumination intensity. g, The ξ dependence on blue (blue line) and red (red line) light intensity, where ξ = 2 is the phase stability boundary. Inset shows the ξ variation of the Gibbs energy of the binary mixture. h, The theoretical phase diagram of the active binary mixture with respect to red and blue light intensities (left axis) and ξ (right axis). Inset points show the obtained phase compositions as observed experimentally, where red and blue points represent the condensed phases with red and blue light illumination, respectively.

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