Linking particle dynamics to local connectivity in colloidal gels

Abstract

Colloidal gels are a prototypical example of a heterogeneous network solid whose complex properties are governed by thermally-activated dynamics. In this Letter we experimentally establish the connection between the intermittent dynamics of individual particles and their local connectivity. We interpret our experiments with a model that describes single-particle dynamics based on highly cooperative thermal debonding. The model, in quantitative agreement with experiments, provides a microscopic picture for the structural origin of dynamical heterogeneity in colloidal gels and sheds new light on the link between structure and the complex mechanics of these heterogeneous solids.

arXiv comment5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Colloidal Gels: Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Routes
• In Search of Colloidal Hard Spheres
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• Nonequilibrium master kinetic equation modelling of colloidal gelation
• Embedding Orthogonal Memories in a Colloidal Gel through Oscillatory Shear
• Direct Imaging of Contacts and Forces in Colloidal Gels
• Microscopic interactions and emerging elasticity in model soft particulate gels
• Structural and dynamical properties of gel networks
• The thermal jamming transition of soft harmonic disks in two dimensions
• ArGSLab: A tool for analyzing experimental or simulated particle networks
• Temperature dependence of the transition packing fraction of thermal jamming in a harmonic soft sphere system
• Attraction-enhanced emergence of friction in colloidal matter
• Energy landscape description of the clustering transition for active soft spheres
• Athermal Jamming vs. glassy dynamics for particles with exponentially decaying repulsive pair interaction potentials with a cutoff