Effects of polydispersity on the glass transition dynamics of aqueous suspensions of soft spherical colloidal particles

Abstract

Thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) particles of a nearly constant swelling ratio and with polydispersity indices (PDIs) varying over a wide range (7.4%–48.9%) are synthesized to study the effects of polydispersity on the dynamics of suspensions of soft PNIPAM colloidal particles. The PNIPAM particles are characterized using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The zero shear viscosity (η₀) data of these colloidal suspensions, estimated from rheometric experiments as a function of the effective volume fraction ø_eff of the suspensions, increases with an increase in ø_eff and shows a dramatic increase at ø_eff=ø₀. The data for η₀ as a function of ø_eff fit well to the Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann (VFT) equation. It is observed that increasing PDIs results in increasingly fragile supercooled liquidlike behavior, with the parameter ø₀, extracted from the fits to the VFT equation, shifting towards higher ø_eff. The observed increase in fragility is attributed to the prevalence of dynamical heterogeneities (DHs) in these polydisperse suspensions, while the simultaneous shift in ø₀ is ascribed to the decoupling of the dynamics of the smallest and largest particles. Finally, it is observed that the intrinsic nonlinearity of these suspensions, estimated at the third harmonic near ø₀ in Fourier transform oscillatory rheological experiments, increases with an increase in PDIs. Our results are in agreement with theoretical predictions and simulation results for polydisperse hard sphere colloidal glasses and clearly demonstrate that jammed suspensions of polydisperse colloidal particles can be effectively fluidized with increasing PDIs. Suspensions of these particles are therefore excellent candidates for detailed experimental studies of the effects of polydispersity on the dynamics of glass formation.