Related papers: Two-step aging dynamics in enzymatic milk gels
The relaxation dynamics of many disordered systems, such as structural glasses, proteins, granular materials or spin glasses, is not completely frozen even at very low temperatures. This residual motion leads to a change of the properties…
Understanding and controlling physical aging, i.e. the spontaneous temporal evolution of out-of-equilibrium systems, represents one of the greatest tasks in material science. Recent studies have revealed the existence of a complex atomic…
We study concentrated colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition. The non-equilibrium nature of the glassy state is most clearly highlighted by aging -- the dependence of the system's properties on the time elapsed…
The sticking of a soft polystyrene colloidal particle to a planar glass plate was studied by a microrheological technique using an optical tweezer to trap the particle and a piezoelectric-stage to position the plate and to sinusoidally…
Colloidal gels are out of equilibrium soft solids composed of attractive Brownian particles that form a space-spanning network at low volume fractions. The elastic properties of these systems result from the network microstructure, which is…
A transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior occurs when colloidal gels are subjected to a prolonged exposure to a steady shear. This phenomenon, which is characterized by a yielding point, is found to be strongly dependent on the…
Colloidal gels formed by strongly attractive particles at low particle volume fractions are composed of space-spanning networks of uniformly sized clusters. We study the thermal fluctuations of the clusters using differential dynamic…
Many colloidal systems display very non-Newtonian and solid-like behaviour when concentrated, a striking feature being the apparition of a yield stress. After recalling some basics about the interactions between colloidal particles, I…
In this work, we investigate the ageing behavior of soft glassy solids of aqueous suspension of laponite under shear flow. We observe that when an imposed time is normalized by a dominating relaxation time of the system, the rheological…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
Aging to the equilibrium liquid state of organic glasses is studied. The glasses were prepared by cooling the liquid to temperatures just below the glass transition. Aging following a temperature jump was studied by measuring the dielectric…
We use computer simulations to study the dynamics of a physical gel at high densities where gelation and the glass transition interfere. We report and provide detailed physical understanding of complex relaxation patterns for time…
As one increases the concentration of a colloidal suspension, the system exhibits a dramatic increase in viscosity. Structurally, the system resembles a liquid, yet motions within the suspension are slow enough that it can be considered…
Magnetic gels with embedded micro/nano-sized magnetic particles in crosslinked polymer networks can be actuated by external magnetic fields, with changes in their internal microscopic structures and macroscopic mechanical properties. We…
Evolution of the energy landscape during physical aging of glassy materials can be understood from the frequency and strain dependence of the shear modulus but the non-stationary nature of these systems frustrates investigation of their…
We present here a microscopic study of the effect of shear on a dense purely repulsive colloidal suspension. We use Multispeckle Diffusing Wave Spectroscopy to monitor the transient motions of colloidal particles after being submitted to an…
We consider a simple model of a structural glass, represented by a lattice gas with kinetic constraints in contact with a particle reservoir. Quench below the glass transition is represented by the jump of the chemical potential above a…
Metastable gels formed by weakly attractive colloidal particles display a distinctive two-stage time-dependent settling behavior under their own weight. Initially a space-spanning network is formed that for a characteristic time, which we…
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…
We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…