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Glass transition and dynamical heterogeneities in charged colloidal suspensions under pressure
B V R Tata1, P S Mohanty, M C Valsakumar
1Materials Science Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam-603 102, Tamil Nadu, India.
Abstract:
Constant-pressure Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to study the static and dynamical properties of a liquidlike ordered suspension of like-charged colloidal particles subjected to a sudden compression. We report for the first time a liquidlike ordered monodisperse suspension undergoing a glass transition at a very low volume fraction ( straight phi = 0.003) and existence of dynamical heterogeneities near the glass transition. Mobile particles have been identified using the non-Gaussian parameter for the self-part of the Van Hove correlation function, and they are found to form clusters. The pressure dependence of mean cluster size and the cluster-size distribution of the mobile particles are discussed.