Structural and dynamic properties of colloids near jamming transition

Molecular dynamics simulations were used to study the jamming transitions occurring in colloidal dispersions interacting through a short-ranged van der Waals attraction and a longer-ranged electrostatic repulsion as represented by the classical Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory. The structural and dynamics properties near the jamming transition were investigated at various parameters leading to the dynamic arrest. The structural investigations revealed that at low-volume fractions, aggregation of particles lead to chain-like clusters and the gel-like structures were formed due to the caging effects. We demonstrated that following the behavior of any of the dynamical properties was sufficient to deduce the jamming phase diagram as all of them showed a critical-like behavior at the onset of the jamming transition. The simulation results also suggested that a long-range repulsive interaction was essential for the formation of a glass-like structure at low-colloidal volume fractions.