  By using theoretical analysis and molecular dynamics simulations, we
investigate the structure of colloidal crystals formed by nonmagnetic
microparticles (or magnetic holes) suspended in ferrofluids (called inverse
ferrofluids), by taking into account the effect of polydispersity in size of
the nonmagnetic microparticles. Such polydispersity often exists in real
situations. We obtain an analytical expression for the interaction energy of
monodisperse, bidisperse, and polydisperse inverse ferrofluids. Body-centered
tetragonal (bct) lattices are shown to possess the lowest energy when compared
with other sorts of lattices and thus serve as the ground state of the systems.
Also, the effect of microparticle size distributions (namely, polydispersity in
size) plays an important role in the formation of various kinds of structural
configurations. Thus, it seems possible to fabricate colloidal crystals by
choosing appropriate polydispersity in size.
