Glassy states in attractive micellar systems

Recent mode coupling theory (MCT) calculations show that in attractive colloids one may observe a new type of glass originating from clustering effects, as a result of the attractive interaction. This happens in addition to the known glass-forming mechanism due to cage effects in the hard sphere system. MCT also indicates that, within a certain volume fraction range, varying the external control parameter, the effective temperature, makes the glass-to-liquid-to-glass re-entrance and the glass-to-glass transitions possible. Here we present experimental evidence and details on this complex phase behavior in a three-block copolymer micellar system.