title: A self-quenched defect glass in a colloid-nematic liquid crystal composite.
abstract: Colloidal particles immersed in liquid crystals frustrate orientational order. This generates defect lines known as disclinations. At the core of these defects, the orientational order drops sharply. We have discovered a class of soft solids, with shear moduli up to 10(4) pascals, containing high concentrations of colloidal particles (volume fraction φ ≳ 20%) directly dispersed into a nematic liquid crystal. Confocal microscopy and computer simulations show that the mechanical strength derives from a percolated network of defect lines entangled with the particles in three dimensions. Such a "self-quenched glass" of defect lines and particles can be considered a self-organized analog of the "vortex glass" state in type II superconductors.
authors: Scottish Universities Physics Alliance and School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, James Clerk Maxwell Building, Kings Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK.
authors: T A
authors: TA
authors: Wood
authors: J S
authors: JS
authors: Lintuvuori
authors: A B
authors: AB
authors: Schofield
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Marenduzzo
authors: W C K
authors: WC
authors: Poon