Melting of metastable crystallites in charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions

We use low-frequency electrophoresis to crystallize monodisperse charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. Rather than reverting directly to their equilibrium fluid state when the field is removed, some suspensions retain long-lived metastable crystallites whose evolution we track using high-resolution digital video microscopy. To quantify the decay of order in this system we introduce an empirical criterion for distinguishing spheres in the crystal from those in the fluid.