Another look at the melting temperature of colloidal crystals in the completely deionized suspension

Melting temperature (T _m) of colloidal crystals of monodispersed polystyrene and silica spheres has been measured for thecompletely deionized suspensions as a function of sphere concentration. More than 3 weeks are needed before achievement of the completely deionized state.T _mincreases substantially as the deionization process of the suspension proceeds. The most reliable values ofT _mobserved for the completely deionized suspensions are successfully analyzed again with the theory of Williams et al. The newT _mvalues are compared also with the theory of Robbins et al., which treats the repulsive Yukawa potential between colloidal spheres.