Prediction of structures and gel transitions in systems of colloids with moderate-range attractions

Journal article, 2007

Predictions of glass transitions from the idealized mode-coupling theory (MCT) are tested for systems with intermediate-range particle attractions. Liquid structure input to MCT is provided by the Asakura–Oosawa (AO) theory for the depletion interaction, used as an idealized model for structures in colloid–polymer mixtures. The effective one-component formulation of the AO theory is verified to capture the complete pair structure found from the binary version of the theory also for polymer–colloid size ratios somewhat larger than those for which an exact mapping of the two descriptions holds. The Percus–Yevick theory is shown to provide an accurate structural input to MCT, at least in the single-phase fluid region. With this combination of theories, very reasonable predictions for locations of glassy states in the experimental phase diagram are obtained for polymer–colloid size ratios somewhat larger than have been considered before. Simple approximations are also suggested for extracting the remaining pair structure from calculations of the one-component AO theory.