Glass Transition in Monolayers of Rough Colloidal Ellipsoids

Abstract

Structure-dynamics correlation is one of the major ongoing debates in the glass transition, although a number of structural features have been found connected to the dynamic heterogeneity in different glass-forming colloidal systems. Here using colloidal experiments combined with coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate the glass transition in monolayers of rough colloidal ellipsoids. Compared with smooth colloidal ellipsoids, the surface roughness of ellipsoids is found to significantly change the nature of glass transition. In particular, we find that the surface roughness induced by coating only a few small hemispheres on the ellipsoids can eliminate the existence of orientational glass and the two-step glass transition found in monolayers of smooth ellipsoids. This is due to the surface roughness-induced coupling between the translational and rotational degrees of freedom in colloidal ellipsoids, which also destroys the structure-dynamics correlation found in glass-forming suspensions of colloidal ellipsoids. Our results not only suggest a new way of using surface roughness to manipulate the glass transition in colloidal systems, but also highlight the importance of detailed particle shape on the glass transition and structure-dynamics correlation in suspensions of anisotropic colloids.

arXiv commentAccepted in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (15)

• Scaling behavior in the $\beta$-relaxation regime of a supercooled Lennard-Jones mixture
• Reentrant glass transition in a colloid-polymer mixture with depletion attractions
• Roles of icosahedral and crystal-like order in hard spheres glass transition
• Roughness-dependent tribology effects on discontinuous shear thickening
• Glass transitions in two-dimensional suspensions of colloidal ellipsoids
• Autonomously revealing hidden local structures in supercooled liquids
• Disentangling the roles of roughness, friction and adhesion in discontinuous shear thickening by means of thermo-responsive particles
• Observation of liquid glass in suspensions of ellipsoidal colloids
• Tetrahedrality dictates dynamics in hard spheres
• Dynamical facilitation governs glassy dynamics in suspensions of colloidal ellipsoids
• How Surface Roughness Affects the Interparticle Interactions at a Liquid Interface
• From scalar to polar active matter: Connecting simulations with mean-field theory
• Spherical probes for simultaneous measurement of rotational and translational diffusion in 3 dimensions
• Roughness Induced Rotational Slowdown Near the Colloidal Glass Transition
• Glassy behaviour of sticky spheres: What lies beyond experimental timescales?