The evolution of field-induced structure of confined ferrofluid emulsions

The authors report a real-time study of the evolution of the structure of confined ferrofluid emulsions during the ''liquid-solid'' phase transition. A monodisperse oil-in-water ferrofluid emulsion is used. The structure evolution of the emulsion after rapidly applying a magnetic field is probed by the static light scattering. The scattering pattern exhibits pronounced rings reflecting the formation of chains and their coalescence to columns or even ''worm'' structures. The scattering ring is found to decrease in size and brighten in intensity with time. To monitor the structure evolution in time, both the ring peak position in scattering wave vector, qmax, and the peak intensity, Imax, are measured as a function of time. Both qmax and Imax saturate in less than 0.5 seconds after applying a magnetic field. At a constant cell thickness of 25 μm, the evolution of structure is essentially independent of volume fraction ranging from 0.015 to 0.13. In addition, a very good scaling is found in the scattered light intensity as a function of the scattering wave vector