Liquid-like ordered colloidal suspensions: The influence of the particle concentration

The density of dependence of the static structure factor S(Q) of liquid-like ordered colloidal suspensions is investigated by light scattering techniques. We found that variation of the particle number density even by a factor of 8 produced only a modest change of the height of the first peak of S(Q). In order to obtain a consistent theoretical description of S(Q) at various particle number densities, the effective charge Z*p of the particles and the Debye screening parameter κ* were calculated on the basis of the Poisson–Boltzmann–Cell (PBC) model and the Poisson–Boltzmann–Jellium (PBJ) model, respectively. The resulting Z*p and κ* values were used to calculate S(Q) via the rescaled mean spherical approximation (RMSA). It is found that a consistent description of the density dependence of S(Q) is possible with the PBC model. By contrast, the PBJ model predicts too weak a liquid-like order than observed experimentally.