Re-entrant behavior in dynamics of binary mixtures of soft hybrid nanocolloids and homopolymers

Abstract

We present results of measurements of temperature and wavevector dependent dynamics in binary mixtures of soft polymer grafted nanoparticles and linear homopolymers. We find evidence of melting of the dynamically arrested state of the soft nanocolloids with addition of linear polymers followed by a re-entrant slowing down of the dynamics with further increase in polymer density, depending on the size ratio, δ, of the polymers and the nanocolloids. For higher δ the re-entrant behavior is not observed, even for the highest added polymer density, explored here. Possible explanation of the observed dynamics in terms of the presence of a double-glass phase is provided.