Viscosity and structural relaxation in concentrated hard-sphere colloids

                                                            Poon WCK, Meeker SP, Pusey PN, Segre PN
                                                     JOURNAL OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID MECHANICS
                                                                             67: 179-189 NOV 1996

                                                                                        Abstract:
Measurements of the low-shear-rate viscosity of a model hard-sphere suspension are presented. Suspension volume
fractions are calibrated with respect to the thermodynamic disorder to order, or crystallization, transition. At
freezing, the low-shear suspension viscosity is found to be approximate to 53 times that of the solvent. This result is
discussed in the light of the considerable literature on hard-sphere suspension viscosity. Particle dynamics in the
same suspensions is studied by two-colour dynamic light scattering. We find that the inverse structural relaxation
time scales exactly as the suspension viscosity.