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  • Amorphous and crystalline s...
    RISSANOU, Anastassia N; YIANNOURAKOU, Marianna; ECONOMOU, Ioannis G; BITSANIS, Ioannis A

    Rheologica acta, 05/2007, Letnik: 46, Številka: 5
    Conference Proceeding, Journal Article

    In this work, we study the temperature-induced development of “dynamically arrested” states in dense suspensions of “soft colloids” (multi-arm star polymers and/or block-copolymers micelles) by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Temperature increase in marginal solvents results in “soft sphere” swelling, dynamical arrest, and eventually crystallization. However, two distinct “dynamically arrested” states were found, one almost amorphous (“glassy”) and one with a considerable degree of crystallinity, yet lower than that of the fully equilibrated crystal. It is remarkable that even that latter state permitted self-diffusion in the timescale of the simulations, an effect that underlies the importance of the “ultra-soft” nature of inter-particle potential. The “number of connections” criterion for crystallinity proved to be very successful in identifying the ultimate thermodynamic trend from the very early stages of the α-relaxation.