Nonlinear screening of high-Z grains and the formation of Coulomb lattices in colloidal plasmas

✍ Scribed by O Bystrenko; A Zagorodny

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 83 KB
• Volume: 262
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0375-9601
• DOI: 10.1016/s0375-9601(99)00660-x

✦ Synopsis

Liquid-solid phase transitions in colloidal plasmas are studied within the Yukawa model with nonlinearly screened effective potentials. It is shown, that there is a minimal charge asymmetry needed for the crystallization of a Coulomb lattice and its value depends on the packing fraction of the colloidal component. The smaller the packing fraction, the higher the charge asymmetry, and, respectively, the stronger the coupling in the colloidal component must be in order to reach the solid state.