Glass transition of repulsive charged rods (fd-viruses)

Abstract

It has recently been shown that suspensions of long and thin charged fibrous viruses (fd) form a glass at low ionic strengths. The corresponding thick electric double layers give rise to long-ranged repulsive electrostatic interactions, which lead to caging and structural arrest at concentrations far above the isotropic–nematic coexistence region. Structural arrest and freezing of the orientational texture are found to occur at the same concentration. In addition, various types of orientational textures are equilibrated below the glass transition concentration, ranging from a chiral-nematic texture with a large pitch (of about 100 μm), an X-pattern, and a tightly packed domain texture, consisting of helical domains with a relatively small pitch (of about 10 μm) and twisted boundaries. The dynamics of both particles as well as the texture are discussed, below and above the glass transition. Dynamic light scattering correlation functions exhibit two dynamical modes, where the slow mode is attributed to the elasticity of helical domains. On approach of the glass-transition concentration, the slow mode increases in amplitude, while as the amplitudes of the fast and slow mode become equal at the glass transition. Finally, interesting features of the “transient” behaviors of charged fd-rod glass are shown as the initial caging due to structural arrest, the propagation of flow originating from stress release, and the transition to the final metastable glass state. In addition to the intensity correlation function, power spectra are presented as a function of the waiting time, at the zero-frequency limit that may access to the thermal anomalities in a charged system.