Formation of double glass in binary mixtures of anisotropic particles: Dynamic heterogeneities in rotations and displacements

Abstract

We study glass behavior in a mixture of elliptic and circular particles in two dimensions at low temperatures using an orientation-dependent Lennard-Jones potential. The ellipses have a mild aspect ratio (∼1.2) and tend to align at low temperatures, while the circular particles play the role of impurities disturbing the ellipse orientations at a concentration of 20%. These impurities have a size smaller than that of the ellipses and attract them in the homeotropic alignment. As a result, the coordination number around each impurity is mostly 5 or 4 in glassy states. We realize double glass, where both the orientations and the positions are disordered but still hold mesoscopic order. We find a strong heterogeneity in the flip motions of the ellipses, which sensitively depends on the impurity clustering. In our model, a small fraction of the ellipses still undergo flip motions relatively rapidly even at low temperatures. In contrast, the nonflip rotations (with angle changes not close to ±π) are mainly caused by the cooperative configuration changes involving many particles. Then, there arises a long-time heterogeneity in the nonflip rotations closely correlated with the dynamic heterogeneity in displacements.