Tailoring the flow of soft glasses by soft additives

Abstract

We examine the vitrification and melting of asymmetric star polymers mixtures by combining rheological measurements with mode coupling theory. We identify two types of glassy states, a {\it single} glass, in which the small component is fluid in the glassy matrix of the big one and a {\it double} glass, in which both components are vitrified. Addition of small star polymers leads to melting of {\it both} glasses and the melting curve has a non-monotonic dependence on the star-star size ratio. The phenomenon opens new ways for externally steering the rheological behavior of soft matter systems.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (4)

• Reentrant glass transition in a colloid-polymer mixture with depletion attractions
• Structural arrest in dense star polymer solutions
• Is there a reentrant glass in binary mixtures?
• Polydisperse star polymer solutions

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