Related papers: Static and dynamic properties of a reversible gel
The glass transition, extensively studied in dense fluids, polymers, or colloids, corresponds to a dramatic evolution of equilibrium transport coefficients upon a modest change of control parameter, like temperature or pressure. A similar…
We use dynamic light scattering and computer simulations to study equilibrium dynamics and dynamic heterogeneity in concentrated suspensions of colloidal hard spheres. Our study covers an unprecedented density range and spans seven decades…
A model glass with fast and slow processes is studied. The statics is simple and the facilitated slow dynamics is exactly solvable. The main features of a fragile glass take place: Kauzmann transition, Vogel-Fulcher law, Adam-Gibbs relation…
Although fully elastic when static, granular media become transiently elastic when being slowly sheared -- during which both the elastic energy and stress relax. Starting from this observation, we cogently derive the framework for granular…
We compare dynamical heterogeneities in equilibrated supercooled liquids and in the nonequilibrium glassy state within the framework of the random first order transition theory. Fluctuating mobility generation and transport in the glass are…
Attractive colloidal gels exhibit solid-like behavior at vanishingly small fractions of solids, owing to ramified space-spanning networks that form due to particle-particle interactions. These networks give the gel its rigidity, and as the…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
We analyze a simple dynamical model of glasses, based on the idea that each particle is trapped in a local potential well, which itself evolves due to hopping of neighbouring particles. The glass transition is signalled by the fact that the…
The existence of heterogeneity in the dynamics of supercooled liquids is believed to be one of the hallmarks of the glass transition. Intense research has been carried out in the past to understand the origin of this heterogeneity in…
Glasses and gels, widely encountered amorphous solids with diverse industrial and everyday applications, share intriguing similarities such as rigidity without crystalline order and dynamic slowing down during aging. However, the underlying…
We study a two-component model for gelation consisting of $f$-functional monomers (the gel) and inert particles (the solvent). After equilibration as a simple liquid, the gel particles are gradually crosslinked to each other until the…
We attempt a classification of different colloidal gels based on colloid-colloid interactions. We discriminate primarily between non-equilibrium and equilibrium routes to gelation, the former case being slaved to thermodynamic phase…
The cytosol state in living cell is treated as homogeneous phase equilibrium with a special feature: the pressure of one phase is positive and the pressure of the other is negative. From this point of view the cytosol is neither solution…
We investigate dynamical heterogeneities in the collective relaxation of a concentrated microgel system, for which the packing fraction can be conveniently varied by changing the temperature. The packing fraction dependent mechanical…
Colloidal gels have strong industrial relevance as they can behave liquid- and solid-like. The latter allows them to support the buoyant weight against gravity. However, the system is intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, which means that the…
Thermo-responsive hydrogels are a promising material for creating controllable actuators for use in micro-scale devices, since they expand and contract significantly (absorbing or expelling fluid) in response to relatively small temperature…
We report a computer simulation study of a model gel-former obtained by modifying the three-body interactions of the Stillinger-Weber potential for silicon. This modification reduces the average coordination number and consequently shifts…
A theoretical and numerically study of dynamical properties in the sol-gel transition is presented. In particular, the complex phenomenology observed experimentally and numerically in gelling systems is reproduced in the framework of…
We use the ``isoconfigurational ensemble'' [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 93}, 135701 (2004)] to analyze both dynamical and structural properties in simulations of a glass forming molecular liquid. We show that spatially correlated clusters of low…
The structural arrest of a polymeric suspension might be driven by an increase of the cross--linker concentration, that drives the gel transition, as well as by an increase of the polymer density, that induces a glass transition. These…