Measurements of growing surface tension of amorphous–amorphous interfaces on approaching the colloidal glass transition
| Autor: | Hima K Nagamanasa, Divya Ganapathi, Rajesh Ganapathy, A. K. Sood |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Multidisciplinary
Materials science Capillary action Science General Physics and Astronomy General Chemistry 01 natural sciences Condensed Matter::Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Article General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology 010305 fluids & plasmas Amorphous solid Surface tension Condensed Matter::Soft Condensed Matter Colloid Chemical physics 0103 physical sciences Relaxation (physics) lcsh:Q Grain boundary lcsh:Science 010306 general physics Supercooling Glass transition |
| Zdroj: | Nature Communications, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2018) Nature Communications |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| Popis: | There is mounting evidence indicating that relaxation dynamics in liquids approaching their glass transition not only become increasingly cooperative, but the relaxing regions also become more compact in shape. Of the many theories of the glass transition, only the random first-order theory—a thermodynamic framework—anticipates the surface tension of relaxing regions to play a role in deciding both their size and morphology. However, owing to the amorphous nature of the relaxing regions, even the identification of their interfaces has not been possible in experiments hitherto. Here, we devise a method to directly quantify the dynamics of amorphous–amorphous interfaces in bulk supercooled colloidal liquids. Our procedure also helped unveil a non-monotonic evolution in dynamical correlations with supercooling in bulk liquids. We measure the surface tension of the interfaces and show that it increases rapidly across the mode-coupling area fraction. Our experiments support a thermodynamic origin of the glass transition. The existence of interfaces, separating distinct relaxing regions, has been predicted in glass theory, but a direct proof remains challenging due to the amorphous nature of glasses. Ganapathi et al. identify and measure the surface tension of these interfaces in bulk supercooled colloidal liquids. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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