2005/05/11 by G. Foffi, C. De Michele, F. Sciortino +1
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Block Copolymer Self-Assembly #Material Dynamics and Properties #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.1924704
published as J. Chem. Phys. 122, 224903 (2005) · 19 pages, 14 figures (figures 4, 5, 10 and 11 are not included for space restriction on preprint servers, for any queries please contact the corresponding author). To be published on J.Chem.Phys
arxiv created 2005/05/11 · openalex publication_date 2005/06/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We numerically investigate the competition between phase separation and dynamical arrest in a colloidal system interacting via a short-ranged attractive potential. Equilibrium fluid configurations are quenched at two different temperatures below the critical temperature and followed during their time evolution. At the lowest studied T, the phase-separation process is interrupted by the formation of an attractive glass in the dense phase. At the higher T, no arrest is observed and the phase-separation process proceeds endlessly in the simulated time window. The final structure of the glass retains memory of the interrupted phase-separation process in the form of a frozen spinodal decomposition peak, whose location and amplitude is controlled by the average packing fraction. We also discuss the time evolution of the nonergodicity parameter, providing evidence of a progressively decreasing localization length on increasing the packing fraction. Finally, we confirm that the reported results are independent of the microscopic dynamics.