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We have used digital video microscopy to study the equilibrium structure of quasi-two-dimensional suspensions of sterically stabilized uncharged polymethylmethacrylate spheres. Our experiments reveal the existence of an equilibrium hexatic phase as well as strongly first-order liquid-to-hexatic and hexatic-to-solid phase transitions. These observations are in agreement with the predictions of Bladon and Frenkel Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 2519 (1995) for a confined colloid suspension in which the pair interaction potential between particles has a hard core and either a very short range attraction or a very short range step repulsion.
Marcus et al. (1996) studied this question.