Related papers: Formation of a transient amorphous solid in low de…
In this chapter, a study of the glass transitions in colloidal systems is presented, in connection with gelation, mainly from theoretical and simulation results. Mode Coupling Theory, which anticipated the existence of attraction driven…
We studied the phase behavior of charged and sterically stabilized colloids using confocal microscopy in a less polar solvent (dielectric constant 5.4). Upon increasing the colloid volume fraction we found a transition from a fluid to a…
Amorphous solids, or glasses, are distinguished from crystalline solids by their lack of long-range structural order. At the level of two-body structural correlations, glassformers show no qualitative change upon vitrifying from a…
Crystallization and vitrification are two different routes to form a solid. Normally these two processes suppress each other, with the glass transition preventing crystallization at high density (or low temperature). This is even true for…
We review a theoretical perspective of the dynamics of glass forming liquids and the glass transition. It is a perspective we have developed with our collaborators during this decade. It is based upon the structure of trajectory space. This…
The process of structural relaxation in disordered solids subjected to repeated tension-compression loading is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. The binary glass is prepared by rapid cooling well below the glass transition…
Unstable systems of fluidized grains in a very-narrow vertical tube can auto-defluidize after some time, the settling particles forming either a glass- or crystal-like structure. We carried out experiments using different polymer spheres,…
Apart from not having crystallized, supercooled liquids can be considered as being properly equilibrated and thus can be described by a few thermodynamic control variables. In contrast, glasses and other amorphous solids can be arbitrarily…
Colloid-polymer mixtures can undergo spinodal decomposition into colloid-rich and colloid-poor regions. Gelation results when interconnected colloid-rich regions solidify. We show that this occurs when these regions undergo a glass…
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…
We discuss the linear and non-linear rheology of concentrated (sub)microscale emulsions, amorphous disordered solids composed of repulsive and deformable soft colloidal spheres. Based on recent results from simulation and theory, we derive…
Colloidal Laves phases (LPs) of $MgCu_2$ type are promising precursors for diamond structure photonic materials. They have been predicted for hard sphere binary mixtures, but not yet observed. We here report a time resolved static light…
We present the results of an experimental investigation into buoyant rigid spheres rising through highly concentrated collections of hydrated hydrogel particles. The volume fraction of particles is such that the mechanical properties of the…
We observed a two-step glass transition in monolayers of colloidal ellipsoids by video microscopy. The glass transition in the rotational degree of freedom was at a lower density than that in the translational degree of freedom. Between the…
This perspective article reviews arguments that glass-forming liquids are different from those of standard liquid-state theory, which typically have a viscosity in the mPa$\cdot$s range and relaxation times of order picoseconds. These…
Quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) colloidal hard-sphere suspensions confined in a slit geometry are widely used as two dimensional (2D) model systems in experiments that probe the glassy relaxation dynamics of 2D systems. However, the…
Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) measurements were performed on colloidal suspensions of Laponite\textsuperscript{\textregistered} at different concentrations in the range $C_\text{w}= (1.5{\div}3.0)$%. The slowing down of the dynamics…
We investigate the response of a system of hard spheres to two classes of perturbations over a range of densities spanning the fluid, crystalline, and glassy regimes within a molecular dynamics framework. Firstly, we consider the relaxation…
Elucidating the nature of the glass transition has been the holy grail of condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics for several decades. A phenomenological aspect that makes glass formation a conceptually formidable problem is that…
The precipitation of a glass forming solute from solution is modelled using a lattice model previously introduced to study dissolution kinetics of amorphous materials. The model includes the enhancement of kinetics at the surface of a glass…