Boundary mobility controls glassiness of confined colloidal liquids

Abstract

We use colloidal suspensions encapsulated in emulsion droplets to model confined glass-forming liquids with tunable boundary mobility. We show dynamics in these idealized systems are governed by physical interactions with the boundary. Gradients in dynamics are present for more mobile boundaries, whereas for less mobile boundaries gradients are almost entirely suppressed. Motions in a system are not isotropic, but have a strong directional dependence with respect to the boundary. These findings bring into question the ability of conventional quantities to adequately describe confined glasses.