Abstract
Colloidal dispersions have structure on length scales from 10 to 1000 Å. Both inter- and intraparticle scattering contribute to the measured small-angle scattering spectra. Here are reviewed methods of quantitatively analyzing scattering from interacting polydisperse colloidal suspensions. The concept of a colloidal macrofluid enables the use of statistical thermodynamic theories to calculate the important effects of interparticle interactions on the scattering curves. Neglect of interparticle interactions negates the usefulness of measured distance distribution functions. Polydispersity and particle anisotropies are treated in an approximate way with decoupling approximations. Scattering data must be obtained over a wide range of q, and model fits must be consistent with all the data.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 729-736 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Applied Crystallography |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1988 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (PYIA-8351179). The National Center for Small-Angle Scattering is funded by the NSF (DMR-77-244-59) through Interagency Agreement No. 40-636-77 with the US Department of Energy under contract number DE-AL05-840R21400 with Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc. I am grateful for the important contributions of J. F. Billman and useful discussions with J. P. Wilcoxon.