Structure and Relaxation Dynamics of a Colloidal Gel

Abstract

Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate the structural and dynamical properties of a simple model for a colloidal gel at low volume fraction. We find that at low T the system is forming an open percolating cluster, without any sign of a phase separation. The nature of the relaxation dynamics depends strongly on the length scale/wave-vector considered and can be directly related to the geometrical properties of the spanning cluster.

7 pages of EPL-tex; 4 figures, revised version

References in corpus (7)

• Equilibrium cluster phases and low-density arrested disordered states: The role of short-range attraction and long-range repulsion
• Dynamical Arrest in Attractive Colloids: The Effect of Long-Range Repulsion
• Model for reversible colloidal gelation
• A cluster mode-coupling approach to weak gelation in attractive colloids
• Direct measurement of three-body interactions
• Dynamical heterogeneities close to a colloidal gel
• A unifying model for chemical and colloidal gels

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Phase diagram of patchy colloids: towards empty liquids
• Colloidal Gels: Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Routes
• Stress localization, stiffening and yielding in a model colloidal gel
• Heterogeneous diffusion in a reversible gel
• Gel to glass transition in simulation of a valence-limited colloidal system
• Length scale dependent relaxation in colloidal gels
• Phase behavior and far-from-equilibrium gelation of charged attractive colloids
• Self-assembly and cooperative dynamics of a model colloidal gel network
• Local structure and dynamics in colloidal fluids and gels
• Structural Relaxation of a Gel Modeled by Three Body Interactions
• A Lattice Model for Colloidal Gels and Glasses
• Gelling by Heating
• The influence of bond-rigidity and cluster diffusion on the self-diffusion of hard spheres with square-well interaction
• Computer Simulation Study of the Phase Behavior and Structural Relaxation in a Gel-Former Modeled by Three Body Interactions
• Structure and elasticity of model disordered, polydisperse and defect-free polymer networks
• Microscopic interactions and emerging elasticity in model soft particulate gels
• C60: the first one-component gel?
• Using patchy particles to prevent local rearrangements in models of non-equilibrium colloidal gels
• The vibrational density of states of a disordered gel model
• Self diffusion of reversibly aggregating spheres
• The rise and fall of branching: a slowing down mechanism in relaxing wormlike micellar networks
• Aging of living polymer networks: a model with patchy particles
• Low temperature behaviour and glass line of the symmetrical colloidal electrolyte
• Solution of Disordered Microphases in the Bethe approximation
• Glasses in Colloidal Systems. Attractive Interactions and Gelation