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Jamming phase diagram for attractive particles

Nature volume 411, pages 772–775 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

A wide variety of systems, including granular media, colloidal suspensions and molecular systems, exhibit non-equilibrium transitions from a fluid-like to a solid-like state, characterized solely by the sudden arrest of their dynamics. Crowding or jamming of the constituent particles traps them kinetically, precluding further exploration of the phase space1. The disordered fluid-like structure remains essentially unchanged at the transition. The jammed solid can be refluidized by thermalization, through temperature or vibration, or by an applied stress. The generality of the jamming transition led to the proposal2 of a unifying description, based on a jamming phase diagram. It was further postulated that attractive interactions might have the same effect in jamming the system as a confining pressure, and thus could be incorporated into the generalized description. Here we study experimentally the fluid-to-solid transition of weakly attractive colloidal particles, which undergo markedly similar gelation behaviour with increasing concentration and decreasing thermalization or stress. Our results support the concept of a jamming phase diagram for attractive colloidal particles, providing a unifying link between the glass transition3, gelation4,5 and aggregation6,7,8.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Control parameters for the jamming transition.
Figure 3: Cuts along the phase boundary defined by σy as a function of φ for fixed U for polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene gels.
Figure 4: Composite jamming phase diagram for attractive colloidal particles.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Nagel and A. Liu for valuable discussions, and for permission to reproduce Fig. 1. This work was supported by Infineum, the NSF and NASA.

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Author notes

  1. V. Trappe

    Present address: Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

  2. Luca Cipelletti

    Present address: Department of Physics, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

  3. P. N. Segre

    Present address: NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, 35812, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and DEAS, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    V. Trappe, V. Prasad, Luca Cipelletti, P. N. Segre & D. A. Weitz

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  1. V. Trappe
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Correspondence to D. A. Weitz.

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Trappe, V., Prasad, V., Cipelletti, L. et al. Jamming phase diagram for attractive particles. Nature 411, 772–775 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35081021

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