ISSN:
1089-7690
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
Depending on surface charge Z*, particle radius a, particle number density n, and salt concentration c, aqueous suspensions of charge-stabilized colloidal spheres show a plentiful morphology correlated with both phase behavior and pair interaction. We here use a combination of light scattering and Bragg microscopy to study the solidification process and the resulting crystals for several monodisperse latex samples. We compare the results to predictions of the melting transition in terms of a reduced pair interaction energy and a coupling parameter. Both quantities were systematically computed in dependence on Z*, a, n, and c. For increasing particle number density the crystalline phase is found less stable than predicted. More importantly, transitions from tooth-like to sheet-like morphology and from dominance of heterogeneous wall nucleation to dominance of homogeneous bulk nucleation run parallel to the experimental phase boundary. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1453967
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