Decoupling of translational and rotational diffusion in quasi-2D colloidal fluids

作者:Vivek Skanda*; Weeks Eric R
来源:Journal of Chemical Physics, 2017, 147(13): 134502.
DOI:10.1063/1.4996733

摘要

We observe the translational and rotational diffusion of dimer tracer particles in quasi-2D colloidal samples. The dimers are in dense samples of two different sizes of spherical colloidal particles, with the area fraction phi of the particles varying from dilute to nearly glassy. At low phi, rotational and translational diffusion have a ratio set by the dimer size, as expected. At higher phi, dimers become caged by their neighboring particles, and both rotational and translational diffusion become slow. For short dimers, we observe rapid reorientations so that the rotational diffusion is faster than the translational diffusion: the two modes of diffusion are decoupled and have different phi dependence. Longer dimers do not exhibit fast rotations, and we find that their translational and rotational diffusion stay coupled for all phi. Our results bridge prior results that used spheres (very fast rotation) and long ellipsoids (very slow rotation). Published by AIP Publishing.

  • 出版日期2017-10-7