2011/06/13 by Wilson C. K. Poon, Eric R. Weeks, C. Patrick Royall · 4 citations
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Adsorption, diffusion, and thermodynamic properties of materials #Chemistry #Colloid #Diffusion #Dispersity #Hard spheres #Material Dynamics and Properties #Materials science #Nucleation #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Physical chemistry #Physics #Polymer chemistry #Statistical physics #Theoretical physics #Thermodynamics #Viscosity #Volume (thermodynamics) #Volume fraction #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1039/c1sm06083j
published as Soft Matter 9 17-27 (2013) · 11 pages
arxiv created 2011/06/13 · openalex publication_date 2011/10/05 · arxiv updated 2017/12/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Hard-sphere colloids are popular as models for testing fundamental theories in condensed matter and statistical physics, from crystal nucleation to the glass transition. A single parameter, the volume fraction (ϕ), characterizes an ideal, monodisperse hard-sphere suspension. In comparing experiments with theories and simulation, researchers to date have paid little attention to likely uncertainties in experimentally-quoted ϕ values. We critically review the experimental measurement of ϕ in hard-sphere colloids, and show that while statistical uncertainties in comparing relative values of ϕ can be as low as 10−4, systematic errors of ≳3% are probably unavoidable. The consequences of this are illustrated by way of a case study comparing literature data sets on hard-sphere viscosity and diffusion.