Probing Dynamic Heterogeneity and Amorphous Order Using Rotational Dynamics of Rodlike Particles in Supercooled Liquids

Abstract

Probing dynamic and static correlation in glass-forming supercooled liquids has been a challenge for decades in spite of extensive research. Dynamic correlation which manifests itself as Dynamic Heterogeneity is ubiquitous in a vast variety of systems starting from molecular glass-forming liquids, dense colloidal systems to collections of cells. On the other hand, the mere concept of static correlation in these dense disordered systems remain somewhat elusive and its existence is still actively debated. We propose a novel method to extract both dynamic and static correlations using rod-like particles as probe. This method can be implemented in molecular glass-forming liquids in experiments as well as in other soft matter systems including biologically relevant systems. We also rationalize the observed log-normal like distribution of rotational decorrelation time of elongated probe molecules in reported experimental studies along with a proposal of a novel methodology to extract dynamic and static correlation lengths in experiments.