Electrooptical effects in colloid systems subjected to short pulses of strong electric field

Existing electrooptical experimental techniques applied to a colloid solution allow the determination of different particle parameters, such as rotary diffusion coefficient, size, polarizability anisotropy and others. If the solution is polydisperse, numerical methods can be used to determine the distribution of particles in the solution on their parameters. These techniques can be applied to systems that are prone to lengthy application of electric field. To study polydisperse systems that cannot stand lengthy application of electric field it is proposed to apply short pulses of strong sine-shaped electric field. It is shown that it is still possible to determine the main particle parameters from the experimental data obtained in this technique. The limitations of this approach are studied. This technique was experimentally probed on aqueous colloid solutions of diamond, graphite and palygorskite. It is shown that for these systems the relaxation of the electrooptical effect after application of strong pulses of sine-shaped electric field is similar to the relaxation of the electrooptical effect from the state of saturated orientation induced by sine-shaped electric field, which is proven by the presented correlation coefficients.