Experimental Realization of the Green-Kubo Relation in Colloidal Suspensions Enabled by Image-based Stress Measurements

Abstract

By combining confocal microscopy and Stress Assessment from Local Structural Anisotropy (SALSA), we directly measure stresses in 3D quiescent colloidal liquids. Our non-invasive and non-perturbative method allows us to measure forces $\lesssim$ 50 fN with a small and tunable probing volume, enabling us to resolve the stress fluctuations arising from particle thermal motions. We use the Green-Kubo relation to relate these measured stress fluctuations to the bulk Brownian viscosity at different volume fractions and comparing against simulations and conventional rheometry measurements. We demonstrate that the Green-Kubo analysis gives excellent agreement with these prior results. This agreement provides a strong demonstration of the applicability of the Green-Kubo relation in nearly hard-sphere suspensions and opens the door to investigations of local flow properties in many poorly understood far-from-equilibrium systems, including suspensions that are glassy, strongly-sheared, or highly-confined.