Motions in binary mixtures of hard colloidal spheres: Melting of the glass

Dynamic light-scattering experiments are performed on binary mixtures of hard-sphere-like colloidal suspensions with a size ratio of 0.6. The optical properties of the particles are such that the relative contrast of the two species is very sensitive to temperature, a feature that is exploited to obtain the three partial coherent intermediate scattering functions. The glass transition is identified by the onset of structural arrest, or arrest of the α process, on the time scale of the experiment. This is observed in a one-component suspension at a packing fraction of 0.575. The intermediate scattering functions measured on the mixtures quantify how, on introduction of the smaller spheres, the α process is released, i.e., how the glass melts. Increasing the fraction of smaller particles causes the α process to speed up but, at a given wave vector, also incurs a change to its amplitude in proportion to the change in the (partial) structure factor.