title: The unique role of bond length in the glassy dynamics of colloidal polymers.
abstract: Bond length is generally not considered as a controllable variable for molecular polymers. Hence, no experimental, simulation or theoretical research, to our knowledge, has examined the influence of bond length on the glassy dynamics of polymers. Recently, a new class of assembling materials called "colloidal polymers" has been synthesized. These colloidal polymers have advantages over molecular polymers in the visibility and flexibility of tuning, for example, the size and shape of the "monomers", the interaction, and the bond length. Dense suspension of colloidal polymers will become a very promising ideal model system for exploring the fundamental problems in the glass transition of chain "molecules". Here, we study the static structure and activated dynamics of hard-sphere colloidal polymers by generalizing the colloidal nonlinear Langevin equation theory to colloidal polymers. Surprisingly, we find that the bond length plays a critical and unique role in many aspects. For instance, the universal relations of the characteristic local lengths and the activated barrier versus the "degree of supercooling", and the structural relaxation versus local vibrational motion are found to be dependent on bond length and independent of chain length and rigidity. We hope that our findings inspire future experimental and simulation research studies on the glassy dynamics of colloidal polymers.
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn and National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China. myqiang@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Bo-Kai
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hui-Shu
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn and Department of Physics, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wen-de
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics & Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. kangchen@suda.edu.cn tianwende@suda.edu.cn and National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China. myqiang@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yu-Qiang
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Ma