Observation of Strongly Heterogeneous Dynamics at the Depinning Transition in a Colloidal Glass

Nesrin Şenbil, Markus Gruber, Chi Zhang, Matthias Fuchs, and Frank Scheffold
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 108002 – Published 13 March 2019
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Abstract

We study experimentally the origin of heterogeneous dynamics in strongly driven glass-forming systems. Thereto, we apply a well-defined force with a laser line trap on individual colloidal polystyrene probe particles seeded in an emulsion glass composed of droplets of the same size. Fluid and glass states can be probed. We monitor the trajectories of the probe and measure displacements and their distributions. Our experiments reveal intermittent dynamics around a depinning transition at a threshold force. For smaller forces, linear response connects mean displacement, and quiescent mean squared displacement. Mode coupling theory calculations rationalize the observations.

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  • Received 16 August 2018
  • Revised 6 December 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.108002

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Polymers & Soft Matter

Authors & Affiliations

Nesrin Şenbil1,†, Markus Gruber2,†, Chi Zhang1, Matthias Fuchs2, and Frank Scheffold1,*

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
  • 2Fachbereich Physik, Universität Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany

  • *Corresponding author. frank.scheffold@unifr.ch
  • N. Ş. and M. G. contributed equally to this work.

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Vol. 122, Iss. 10 — 15 March 2019

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