Small-angle scattering of interacting particles. II. Generalized indirect Fourier transformation under consideration of the effective structure factor for polydisperse systems

The indirect Fourier transformation (IFT) is the method of choice for the model-free evaluation of small-angle scattering data. Unfortunately, this technique is only useful for dilute solutions because, for higher concentrations, particle interactions can no longer be neglected. Thus an advanced technique was developed as a generalized version, the so-called generalized indirect Fourier transformation (GIFT). It is based on the simultaneous determination of the form factor, representing the intraparticle contributions, and the structure factor, describing the interparticle contributions. The former can be determined absolutely free from model assumptions, whereas the latter has to be calculated according to an adequate model. In this paper, various models for the structure factor are compared, e.g. the effective structure factor for polydisperse hard spheres, the averaged structure factor, the local monodisperse approximation and the decoupling approximation. Furthermore, the structure factor for polydisperse rod-like particles is presented. As the model-free evaluation of small-angle scattering data is an essential point of the GIFT technique, the use of a structure factor without any influence of the form amplitude is advisable, at least during the first evaluation procedure. Therefore, a series of simulations are performed to check the possibility of the representation of various structure factors (such as the effective structure factor for hard spheres or the structure factor for rod-like particles) by the less exact but much simpler averaged structure factor. In all the observed cases, it was possible to recover the exact form factor with a free determined parameter set for the structure factor. The resulting parameters of the averaged structure factor have to be understood as apparent model parameters and therefore have only limited physical relevance. Thus the GIFT represents a technique for the model independent evaluation of scattering data with a minimum of a priori information.