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Glass forming liquids in a quenched random potential
1The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Taramani, Chennai-600113, India.
Soft Matter
|March 31, 2020
Summary
Adding quenched disorder to colloidal glasses causes slower dynamics and aging. This effect intensifies with increased disorder and particle packing, independent of hexatic order.
Area of Science:
- Soft Matter Physics
- Materials Science
- Statistical Mechanics
Background:
- Colloidal glasses exhibit complex dynamics under external influences.
- Quenched disorder is crucial for understanding glassy systems.
- Recent experiments and mean-field theories guide this investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of spatially random potentials on a 2D colloidal glass.
- To understand how quenched disorder affects glassy dynamics and aging.
- To explore the relationship between dynamical slowdown, disorder, and hexatic order.
Main Methods:
- Numerical simulations of a model two-dimensional colloidal glass former.
- Imposition of externally controlled, spatially random potentials (quenched disorder).
- Analysis of dynamics, aging, and hexatic order as a function of disorder strength and packing fraction.
Main Results:
- Externally imposed disorder induces glassy dynamics at lower field roughness.
- Increasing packing fraction and disorder strength accelerate the onset of glassy dynamics.
- Aging processes are observed within the glassy regime.
- Dynamical slowdown is not correlated with hexatic order along the increasing field roughness axis.
Conclusions:
- Quenched disorder significantly alters colloidal glass dynamics, promoting faster glassy behavior.
- Aging is an inherent characteristic of the disordered glassy state.
- Hexatic order in the supercooled regime does not dictate the dynamical slowdown induced by disorder.
