Glasslike kinetic arrest at the colloidal-gelation transition

We show that gelation of weakly attractive colloids is remarkably similar to the colloidal glass transition. Like the glass transition, dynamic light scattering functions near gelation scale with scattering vector, and exhibits a two-step decay with a power-law divergence of the final decay time. Li...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 86; no. 26 Pt 1; p. 6042
Main Authors Segrè, P N, Prasad, V, Schofield, A B, Weitz, D A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 25.06.2001
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Summary:We show that gelation of weakly attractive colloids is remarkably similar to the colloidal glass transition. Like the glass transition, dynamic light scattering functions near gelation scale with scattering vector, and exhibits a two-step decay with a power-law divergence of the final decay time. Like the glass transition, static light scattering does not change upon gelation. These results suggest that, like the glass transition, gelation results from kinetic arrest due to crowding of clusters, and that both gelation and the glass transition are manifestations of a more general jamming transition.
ISSN:0031-9007
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.6042