and previous studies have shown that it is possible to achieve trapping of colloidal particles in the hot region through depletion attraction . This phenomenon can be further understood through the Asakura-Oosawa (A-O) theory , which provides a fundamental framework for the understanding of depletion-induced assembly of colloids. According to this theory, non-interacting polymer coils are depleted around the particle surface, thus creating an attractive force between the particles. This attraction potential between particles is proportional to the osmotic pressure of the dispersion and the excluded volume. However, A-O theory presents deviations in those systems where the sizes of the colloidal particles and polymer are comparable (called the "protein limit"), leading to different assembly dynamics and interaction forces . The colloidal conditions of this system are within this regime, as the size of PVP10K is similar to (or even larger in the case of PVP360K) the radius of the AuNRs .