Freezing lines of colloidal Yukawa spheres. II. Local structure and characteristic lengths.

Abstract

Using the Rogers-Young (RY) integral equation scheme for the static pair correlation functions combined with the liquid-phase Hansen-Verlet freezing rule, we study the generic behavior of the radial distribution function and static structure factor of monodisperse charge-stabilized suspensions with Yukawa-type repulsive particle interactions at freezing. In a related article, labeled Paper I [J. Gapinski, G. Nägele, and A. Patkowski, J. Chem. Phys. 136, 024507 (2012)], this hybrid method was used to determine two-parameter freezing lines for experimentally controllable parameters, characteristic of suspensions of charged silica spheres in dimethylformamide. A universal scaling of the RY radial distribution function maximum is shown to apply to the liquid-bcc and liquid-fcc segments of the universal freezing line. A thorough analysis is made of the behavior of characteristic distances and wavenumbers, next-neighbor particle coordination numbers, osmotic compressibility factor, and the Ravaché-Mountain-Streett minimum-maximum radial distribution function ratio.