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Direct observation of a local structural mechanism for dynamic arrest

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 556–561 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The mechanism by which a liquid may become arrested, forming a glass or gel, is a long-standing problem of materials science. In particular, long-lived (energetically) locally favoured structures (LFSs), the geometry of which may prevent the system relaxing to its equilibrium state, have long been thought to play a key role in dynamical arrest. Here, we propose a definition of LFSs which we identify with a novel topological method and directly measure with experiments on a colloidal liquid–gel transition. The population of LFSs is a strong function of (effective) temperature in the ergodic liquid phase, rising sharply approaching dynamical arrest, and indeed forms a percolating network that becomes the ‘arms’ of the gel. Owing to the LFSs, the gel is unable to reach equilibrium, crystal–gas coexistence. Our results provide direct experimental observation of a link between local structure and dynamical arrest, and open a new perspective on a wide range of metastable materials.

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Figure 1: Structural and dynamic characterization of the colloidal liquid–gel transition.
Figure 2: Coordinates identified as belonging to different LFSs.
Figure 3: Proportion of particles in LFSs as a function of polymer concentration.
Figure 4: Static and dynamic characteristics of gelation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to A. van Blaaderen and D. Derks for particle synthesis help and gifts. We wish to thank P. Bartlett, D. Derks, D. Head and R. Jack for critical reading of the manuscript, and T. Ichikawa for kind instrumentation support. This work was partially supported by a grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. C.P.R. is grateful to the Royal Society for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK

    C. Patrick Royall

  2. Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

    C. Patrick Royall, Takehiro Ohtsuka & Hajime Tanaka

  3. Research School of Chemistry, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

    Stephen R. Williams

Authors
  1. C. Patrick Royall
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  4. Hajime Tanaka
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Contributions

C.P.R., S.R.W. and H.T. conceived the project and wrote the manuscript, C.P.R. carried out the experiments, simulation and analysis, S.R.W. wrote the TCC code and T.O. wrote the W6 analysis code.

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Correspondence to C. Patrick Royall or Hajime Tanaka.

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Patrick Royall, C., Williams, S., Ohtsuka, T. et al. Direct observation of a local structural mechanism for dynamic arrest. Nature Mater 7, 556–561 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2219

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