Emulsion glasses: A dynamic light-scattering study

Abstract

A liquid-glass transition was observed experimentally in a new system, an oil-in-water emulsion. Dynamic light scattering was employed to obtain the intermediate scattering function f(q,t) for a range of volume fractions \ensuremath{\varphi} and scattering vectors q. The results are compared with predictions of the mode coupling theory. While the usual idealized version of the theory provides accurate fits to the data on the liquid side of the transition, fits for volume fractions near the transition and in the glass phase were found to require the extended version, presumably due to an additional decay mechanism related to the deformability of the oil droplets.