Experimental signatures of a nonequilibrium phase transition governing the yielding of a soft glass

Nagamanasa, Hima K and Gokhale, Shreyas and Sood, AK and Ganapathy, Rajesh (2014) Experimental signatures of a nonequilibrium phase transition governing the yielding of a soft glass. In: PHYSICAL REVIEW E, 89 (6).

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Abstract

We present direct experimental signatures of a nonequilibrium phase transition associated with the yield point of a prototypical soft solid-a binary colloidal glass. By simultaneously quantifying single-particle dynamics and bulk mechanical response, we identified the threshold for the onset of irreversibility with the yield strain. We extracted the relaxation time from the transient behavior of the loss modulus and found that it diverges in the vicinity of the yield strain. This critical slowing down is accompanied by a growing correlation length associated with the size of regions of high Debye-Waller factor, which are precursors to yield events in glasses. Our results affirm that the paradigm of nonequilibrium critical phenomena is instrumental in achieving a holistic understanding of yielding in soft solids.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	PHYSICAL REVIEW E
Publisher:	AMER PHYSICAL SOC
Additional Information:	copyright for this article belongs to the AMER PHYSICAL SOC
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2014 09:37
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2014 09:37
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/49639

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