Heterogeneous Diffusion in a Reversible Gel
- 28 March 2007
- journal article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 98 (13), 135503
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.98.135503
Abstract
We introduce a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to study its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a critical point, a gelation line determined by geometric percolation, and an equilibrium gel phase unrelated to phase separation. The global structure of the gel is homogeneous, but the stress is only supported by a fractal network. The gel dynamics is highly heterogeneous and we propose a theoretical model to quantitatively describe dynamic heterogeneity in gels. We elucidate several differences between the dynamics of gels and that of glass formers.Keywords
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