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A unified state diagram for the yielding transition of soft colloids

Nature Physics volume 19, pages 1673–1679 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Concentrated colloidal suspensions and emulsions are amorphous soft solids, widespread in technological and industrial applications and studied as model systems in physics and materials sciences. They are easily fluidized by applying mechanical stress, undergoing a yielding transition that still lacks a unified description. Here we investigate yielding in three classes of repulsive soft solids and find that at the microscopic level, yielding consists of a transition between two distinct dynamical states. We rationalize this by proposing a lattice model with dynamical coupling between neighbouring sites, leading to a unified state diagram for yielding. Employing the analogy with van der Waals phase diagram for real gases, we show that distance from a critical point plays a major role in the emergence of first-order-like versus second-order-like features in yielding, thereby reconciling previously contrasting observations on the nature of the transition.

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Fig. 1: Viscoelasticity and spontaneous dynamics of a dense microgel suspension.
Fig. 2: Yielding of soft solids as a dynamic transition.
Fig. 3: Theoretical and numerical modelling of the yielding transition.
Fig. 4: Unified state diagram for the yielding transition.
Fig. 5: Distance from a critical point governs the nature of the yielding transition.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22674334. Additional data concerning this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code that supports the plots within this paper and other findings of this study is available via GitHub at https://github.com/steaime/SimulIsing.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. D. Knowlton for help with the experiments on emulsions and L. Berthier for illuminating discussions. This work was funded by the French CNES, ANR (grant nos. ANR-14-CE32-0005 FAPRES (to L.C. and L.R.) and ANR-20-CE06-0028, MultiNet (to L.C. and L.R.)), and by the EU (Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN Supolen grant 607937 (to S.A. and L.R.)). L.C. acknowledges support from the Institut Universitaire de France.

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Author notes

  1. Stefano Aime

    Present address: Molecular, Macromolecular Chemistry, and Materials, ESPCI Paris, Paris, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Université Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Stefano Aime, Domenico Truzzolillo, Laurence Ramos & Luca Cipelletti

  2. Department of Physics & Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    David J. Pine

  3. Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France

    Luca Cipelletti

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Contributions

S.A., L.R., D.J.P. and L.C. designed the experiments. S.A. performed the experiments and numerical simulations. S.A. and D.T. conceived the model. All authors analysed the results, discussed and improved the model and contributed to writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Luca Cipelletti.

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Aime, S., Truzzolillo, D., Pine, D.J. et al. A unified state diagram for the yielding transition of soft colloids. Nat. Phys. 19, 1673–1679 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02153-w

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