Aging behavior of Laponite clay particle suspensions

Abstract

We use optical techniques to study the aging behavior of glassy colloidal suspensions of Laponite, a synthetic Hectorite clay. Multi-speckle diffusing wave spectroscopy measurements of tracer particle motion in Laponite suspensions show that the slow collective relaxation time τ of the glassy medium scales linearly with the age tw of the sample, a universal feature of many glassy systems. Moreover, the mean-square displacement of the tracer particles in the terminal regime scales as ⟨Δr2(tw,t)⟩ ∼ (t/tw)γ, where γ = 1.5 ± 0.1. Light scattering studies of pure glassy Laponite suspensions show that the scattered light intensity is q-independent and decreases slowly with age, indicating that homogenization of the sample occurs during the aging process. We propose that the novel slow dynamics in this system is governed by random, localized stress relaxation events in the glassy phase.