Correlations among colloidal particles confined to a spherical monolayer

The internal structure of spherical colloidal monolayers of charged particles is studied here, both by means of Monte Carlo computer simulations and of an integral equation approach based on the application of the Ornstein-Zernike equation for spherical surfaces. The latter is complemented with a relatively fast and accurate numerical method for its solution, obtained by expanding the corresponding correlation functions in series of Legendre polynomials. It is found that the density correlations among the particles within the monolayer have some special features that differentiate them from the corresponding bulk corrections in open spaces. In particular, for a sufficiently small radius of the spherical monolayer, the distribution of particles around a particle fixed at one of the poles exhibits a peak at the opposite pole which is noticeably larger than the peaks immediately before it. It is also shown here that the introduction of a simple functional form with one adjustable parameter for the bridge function greatly enhances the fit between the theoretical approach and the simulation data. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.