Role of local structure in dynamics of sheared colloidal glass

Abstract

Glass forming liquids show abrupt increase in viscosity below the glass transition temperature. Dynamical heterogeneity is a signature of the glassy system where a group of particles has higher mobility than the rest of the system which facilitates relaxation. In a quiescent glass as the liquid is cooled, it is observed that the local structures like icosahedra and FCC arrangement grows and responsible for slowing down the system. But what happens to the system if we shear is not well understand. Here we have studied a colloidal dense suspension under steady state shear whose particle level structure was investigated. We find that a cluster of 10 particles called defective icosahedra is found in highest proportion and has dynamics three times slower than the bulk system. We have also built a steady state shear cell using which we are able to shear a colloidal dense suspension to study the structure dynamics relation in glassy systems.