Colloidal systems offer unique opportunities for the study of phase formation and structure since their characteristic length scales are accessible to visible light. As a model system the two dimensional assembly of colloidal magnetic and non-magnetic particles dispersed in a ferrofluid (FF) matrix is studied by transmission optical microscopy. We present a method to statistically evaluate images with thousands of particles and map phases by extraction of local variables. Different lattice structures and long-range connected branching chains are observed, when tuning the effective magnetic interaction and varying particle ratios.
@article{arxiv.1703.08350,
title = {Statistical analysis of phase formation in 2D colloidal systems},
author = {Hauke Carstensen and Vassilios Kapaklis and Max Wolff},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.08350},
year = {2018}
}