Light scattering by diamond and graphite nanodisperse systems with their particles orientationally ordered in an electric field

Abstract

We have presented the results of our investigations of relative changes in the intensity of light scattered by nanodisperse systems that are exposed to the action of an electric field. To orient particles of the systems under study, sinusoidal fields of variable amplitude and frequency from the radiofrequency range were used. We have examined aqueous polydisperse suspensions of diamond and graphite particles. The average sizes of particles in the two suspensions are close to each other and are comparable with the wavelength of the incident light. Graphite particles had the shape of disks, while polycrystalline diamond particles did not have a clearly pronounced shape. Investigations have been conducted not only in the regime of a stationary orientational order of particles in the field, but also in the course of forced and free relaxation of this order. For the graphite nanodisperse system, the normalized-in-amplitude dependences of observed electrooptical effects on the field strength almost do not depend on the scattering angle, whereas, for the diamond nanodisperse system, they considerably vary as this angle changes. Upon relaxation of the orientational order of particles, the time dependences of these effects in both systems change with varying scattering angle. We have compared field and time dependences of scattering-induced effects with analogous dependences of field-induced dichroism.