Robust scaling of strength and elastic constants and universal cooperativity in disordered colloidal micropillars.

ABSTRACT: We study the uniaxial compressive behavior of disordered colloidal free-standing micropillars composed of a bidisperse mixture of 3- and 6-μm polystyrene particles. Mechanical annealing of confined pillars enables variation of the packing fraction across the phase space of colloidal glasses. The measured normalized strengths and elastic moduli of the annealed freestanding micropillars span almost three orders of magnitude despite similar plastic morphology governed by shear banding. We measure a robust correlation between ultimate strengths and elastic constants that is invariant to relative humidity, implying a critical strain of ∼0.01 that is strikingly similar to that observed in metallic glasses (MGs) [Johnson WL, Samwer K (2005) Phys Rev Lett 95:195501] and suggestive of a universal m

SUBMITTER: Strickland DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4280646 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature