Figure 3.

Fitting of the structure-factor contributions to a scattering curve measured at 100 s during the composite-formation processes. A) Comparison between the effect of the unsmeared (monodisperse aR_eHS, red line) S_SHS(q) from Equations 5–14 and the smeared (polydisperse, green line) <S_SHS(q)> from Equation 18. Fits yielded ν = 0.454 ± 0.008, aR_eHS = 0.979 ± 0.036 nm, <aR_eHS> = 0.930 ± 0.000 nm, and σ = 0.533 ± 0.050 nm; the complete structure factor fit (pink line), which includes the unsmeared S_SHS(q), illustrates that the form of the function affects only the correlation peak at q ≈ 1 nm⁻¹ (arrow), and not the low-q scattering intensity of the aggregates; B) the final fit to the data (pink line) with each structure-factor contribution plotted separately (green and orange lines). Parameters for <S_SHS(q)> are the same as in panel A, whereas for the S_agg(q) from Equation 17, we obtained A = 0.0437 ± 0.0001 and D = 2.37 ± 0.00. The data uncertainties are not shown for clarity.