Density of states of colloidal glasses.
Glasses are structurally liquidlike, but mechanically solidlike. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find soft low-frequency modes that are very different in nature from the usual acoustic vibrations of ordinary solids. These modes extend over surprisingly large length scales.
Ghosh
Antina
A
Van der Waals Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 67, 1018 XE Amsterdam The Netherlands.
Chikkadi
Vijayakumar K
VK
Schall
Peter
P
Kurchan
Jorge
J
Bonn
Daniel
D