Colloidal hard-sphere suspensions are convenient experimental models to understand soft matter, and also by analogy the structural-relaxation behavior of atomic or small-molecular fluids. We discuss this analogy for the flow and deformation behavior close to the glass transition. Based on a mapping of temperature to effective hard-sphere packing, the stress–strain curves of typical bulk metallic glass formers can be quantitatively compared with those of hard-sphere suspensions. Experiments on colloids give access to the microscopic structure under deformation on a single-particle level, providing insight into the yielding mechanisms that are likely also relevant for metallic glasses. We discuss the influence of higher-order angular signals in connection with non-affine particle rearrangements close to yielding. The results are qualitatively explained on the basis of the mode-coupling theory. We further illustrate the analogy of pre-strain dependence of the linear-elastic moduli using data on PS-PNiPAM suspensions.

中文翻译：

---

胶体和金属玻璃形成剂的流变学

胶体硬球悬浮液是理解软物质的方便实验模型，也可以通过类比原子或小分子流体的结构松弛行为。我们讨论了接近玻璃化转变的流动和变形行为的这种类比。基于温度与有效硬球堆积的映射，典型块状金属玻璃成型体的应力-应变曲线可以与硬球悬浮液的应力-应变曲线进行定量比较。胶体实验可以在单粒子水平上获得变形下的微观结构，从而深入了解可能也与金属玻璃相关的屈服机制。我们讨论了与接近屈服的非仿射粒子重排相关的高阶角信号的影响。在模式耦合理论的基础上对结果进行了定性解释。我们使用 PS-PNiPAM 悬浮液的数据进一步说明了线性弹性模量的预应变依赖性的类比。