Colloidal suspensions of C-particles: Entanglement, percolation and microrheology

Abstract

We explore structural and dynamical behavior of concentrated colloidal suspensions made up by C-shape particles using Brownian dynamics computer simulations and theory. In particular, we focus on the entanglement process between nearby particles for almost closed C-shapes with a small opening angle. Depending on the opening angle and the particle concentration, there is a percolation transition for the cluster of entangled particles which shows the classical scaling characteristics. In a broad density range below the percolation threshold, we find a stretched exponential function for the dynamical decorrelation of the entanglement process. Finally, we study a set-up typical in microrheology by dragging a single tagged particle with constant speed through the suspension. We measure the cluster connected to and dragged with this tagged particle. In agreement with a phenomenological theory, the size of the dragged cluster depends on the dragging direction and increases markedly with the dragging speed.