Investigation of the Form factor of Faceted Particles using Statistical Simulations

Scattering techniques are a powerful tool to characterize the shape and architecture of colloids and, using neutron scattering with contrast variation, the response of soft colloids in crowded environments. Microgels, deformable polymeric crosslinked networks often used as model system for soft colloids, have been investigated in crowded environment and their scattered intensities fitted with sphere-based models to gain information on their response in size and shape to crowding. For these systems, but also for nanoemulsions, an increase in the fitting parameter describing the size-polydispersity was observed and considered to be due to the deformation of the particles. This study aims to investigate this hypothesis by systematically deforming model particles and computing the corresponding form factors in a computer simulation. The model shape of a faceted sphere is introduced. Our simulations show that the computed averaged form factors of faceted particles can be fitted with a spherical model with in an increased parameter describing the size-polydispersity, which is consistent with the experimental observations. Finally we compare our calculated form factors with experimental data.