Comparative study of the dynamics of colloidal glass and gel

Fukai Zhang; Haitao Yu; Huaguang Wang; Zexin Zhang

doi:10.1063/5.0146692

Comparative study of the dynamics of colloidal glass and gel

J Chem Phys. 2023 May 7;158(17):174902. doi: 10.1063/5.0146692.

Authors

Fukai Zhang¹, Haitao Yu², Huaguang Wang¹, Zexin Zhang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
² The High School Affiliated to Southwest University, Chongqing 400700, China.
³ Institute for Advanced Study, Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics and Interdisciplinary Research, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China.

PMID: 37144714
DOI: 10.1063/5.0146692

Abstract

We investigate and compare the difference in the dynamics of two arrested states: colloidal glass and colloidal gel. Real-space experiments reveal two distinct nonergodicity origins for their slow dynamics, namely, cage effects for the glass and attractive bondings for the gel. Such distinct origins lead to a faster decay of the correlation function and a smaller nonergodicity parameter of the glass than those of the gel. We also find that the gel exhibits stronger dynamical heterogeneity compared with the glass due to the greater correlated motions in the gel. Moreover, a logarithmic decay in the correlation function is observed as the two nonergodicity origins merge, consistent with the mode coupling theory.