No Arabic abstract
In this work, we study ageing behavior of aqueous laponite suspension, a model soft glassy material, in creep. We observe that viscoelastic behavior is time dependent and is strongly influenced by the deformation field; the effect is known to arise due to ageing and rejuvenation. We show that irrespective of strength of deformation field (shear stress) and age, when imposed time-scale is normalized with dominating relaxation mode of the system, universal ageing behavior is obtained demonstrating time-stress superposition; the phenomena that may be generic in variety of soft materials.
We investigate the stress relaxation behavior on the application of step strains to aging aqueous suspensions of the synthetic clay Laponite. The stress exhibits a two-step decay, from which the slow relaxation modes are extracted as functions of the sample ages and applied step strain deformations. Interestingly, the slow time scales that we estimate show a dramatic enhancement with increasing strain amplitudes. We argue that the system ends up exploring the deeper sections of its energy landscape following the application of the step strain.
Dilute Laponite suspensions in water at low salt concentration form repulsive colloidal glasses which display physical aging. This phenomenon is still not completely understood and in particular, little is known about the connection between the flow history, as a determinant of the initial state of the system, and the subsequent aging dynamics. Using a stress controlled rheometer, we perform stress jump experiments to observe the elastic component of the flow stress that remains on cessation of flow or flow quenching. We investigate the connection between the dynamics of these residual stresses and the rate of physical aging upon quenching from different points on the steady state flow curve. Quenching from high rates produces a fluid state, G>G, with small, fast relaxing residual stresses and rapid, sigmoidal aging of the complex modulus. Conversely, quenching from lower shear rates produces increasingly jammed states featuring slowly relaxing stresses and a slow increase of the complex modulus with system age. Flow cessation from a fixed shear rate with varying quench durations shows that slower quenches produce smaller residual stresses at short times which relax at long times by smaller extents, by comparison with faster quenches. These smaller stresses are correlated with a higher modulus but slower physical aging of the system. The characteristic time for the residual stress relaxation scales inversely with the quench rate. This implies a frustrated approach to any ideal stress-free state that succinctly reflects the frustrated nature of these glassy systems.
Motivated by the mean field prediction of a Gardner phase transition between a normal glass and a marginally stable glass, we investigate the off-equilibrium dynamics of three-dimensional polydisperse hard spheres, used as a model for colloidal or granular glasses. Deep inside the glass phase, we find that a sharp crossover pressure $P_{rm G}$ separates two distinct dynamical regimes. For pressure $P < P_{rm G}$, the glass behaves as a normal solid, displaying fast dynamics that quickly equilibrates within the glass free energy basin. For $P>P_{rm G}$, instead, the dynamics becomes strongly anomalous, displaying very large equilibration time scales, aging, and a constantly increasing dynamical susceptibility. The crossover at $P_{rm G}$ is strongly reminiscent of the one observed in three-dimensional spin-glasses in an external field, suggesting that the two systems could be in the same universality class, consistently with theoretical expectations.
Evolution of the energy landscape during physical aging of glassy materials can be understood from the frequency and strain dependence of the shear modulus but the non-stationary nature of these systems frustrates investigation of their instantaneous underlying properties. Using a series of time dependent measurements we systematically reconstruct the frequency and strain dependence as a function of age for a repulsive colloidal glass undergoing structural arrest. In this manner, we are able to unambiguously observe the structural relaxation time, which increases exponentially with sample age at short times. The yield stress varies logarithmically with time in the arrested state, consistent with recent simulation results, whereas the yield strain is nearly constant in this regime. Strikingly, the frequency dependence at fixed times can be rescaled onto a master curve, implying a simple connection between the aging of the system and the change in the frequency dependent modulus.
A new protocol for an aging experiment is studied in the electron-glass phase of indium-oxide films. In this protocol, the sample is exposed to a non-ohmic electric field F for a waiting time t_{w} during which the system attempts to reach a steady state (rather than relax towards equilibrium). The relaxation of the excess conductance dG after ohmic conditions are restored exhibit simple aging as long as F is not too large.