Overview Lecture: Colloidal gelation

In this lecture I will focus on different routes to colloidal gelation. Gels are low-density, disordered arrested states that may have different origin. For colloidal particles intracting with isotropic attraction on top of the hard-core repulsion, gelation results from an arrested phase separation and hence, it is a non-equilibrium process. Instead, when interactions between particles are anisotropic, one can drive the formation of gels in equilibrium. Some results from simple models will be discussed and their connection with experimental systems.