title: Anisotropic pair correlations and structure factors of confined hard-sphere fluids: an experimental and theoretical study.
abstract: We address the fundamental question: how are pair correlations and structure factors of hard-sphere fluids affected by confinement between hard planar walls at close distance? For this purpose, we combine x-ray scattering from colloid-filled nanofluidic channel arrays and first-principles inhomogeneous liquid-state theory within the anisotropic Percus-Yevick approximation. The experimental and theoretical data are in remarkable agreement at the pair-correlation level, providing the first quantitative experimental verification of the theoretically predicted confinement-induced anisotropy of the pair-correlation functions for the fluid. The description of confined fluids at this level provides, in the general case, important insights into the mechanisms of particle-particle interactions in dense fluids under confinement.
authors.affiliation: Research Department of Synchrotron Radiation and Nanotechnology, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland. kim.nygard@chem.gu.se
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nygård
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kjellander
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sarman
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chodankar
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Perret
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Buitenhuis
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: van der Veen