Crystallization and characterization of crystallites in charge stabilized suspensions

For three different types of polymer latex particles with widely different particle charges the structure of suspensions before and after crystallization is investigated. A liquid-like ordered state was achieved by shear melting crystal-like ordered samples. The structure factors S(Q) of the liquid-like suspensions are analyzed in terms of the resealed mean spherical approximation (RMSA) of Hansen and Hayter. The Bragg diffraction pattern of the crystallized samples shows that the structure is b.c.c. It is found that the particle number concentration n and the distance of nearest neighbours in corresponding liquid- and crystal-like states differ by less than 4 %.

In the second part of the paper, Bragg diffraction was used to determine the crystallite size distribution in samples of different particle concentration.