Direct visualization of aging in colloidal glasses
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
2009-11-07 v1 Soft Condensed Matter
Abstract
We use confocal microscopy to directly visualize the dynamics of aging colloidal glasses. We prepare a colloidal suspension at high density, a simple model system which shares many properties with other glasses, and initiate experiments by stirring the sample. We follow the motion of several thousand colloidal particles after the stirring and observe that their motion significantly slows as the sample ages. The aging is both spatially and temporally heterogeneous. Furthermore, while the characteristic relaxation time scale grows with the age of the sample, nontrivial particle motions continue to occur on all time scales.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0209148,
title = {Direct visualization of aging in colloidal glasses},
author = {Rachel E. Courtland and Eric R. Weeks},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0209148},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
submitted to proceedings for Liquid Matter Conference 2002