Electro-rheological fluids:
Raw data obtained from LSCM, together with digitally reconstructed images -
Raw data obtained from a sample that has been in the field (~1kv/mm) for ~3hours is shown below. The structures do not evolve further with time. It can be seen that the sample is mostly ordered as BCT in the bulk. At the electrodes, the spheres are arranged as hexagonal planes which are parallel to the electrodes.
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A java animation of a scan through the sample along the E-field direction. The scan is from the bottom electrode to the bulk of the sample. The planes in the scan are separated by ~0.18 microns. The bulk of the sample shows BCT ordering. |
A view looking down the electric field. Adjacent chains, indicated by a X or a∑ are offset parallel to the field by a sphere radius. The image was extracted from the 3-d rendering of the data shown at the bottom of this page. |
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A scan through the raw data along planes parallel to the E-field. The images are reconstructions of the raw data. |
A view in a plane parallel to the E-field. The structure is BCT in the upper portion of the image (in the bulk of the sample) and is more close-packed (with disorder) near the electrode. The dots indicate a hexagonal packed plane, an lines connect the centers of particles in a representative chain. Due to image charges induced in the electrodes, the first 4-6 layers of spheres have close-packed planes parallel to the electrode. In these layers spheres do not form chains parallel to the field. |
This is a 3-dimensional rendering of the above data in VRML format. The centers of the spheres were obtained in 3 dimensions through image processing of the raw data.