Structural relaxation and glass transition behavior of binary hard-ellipse mixtures

Abstract

Structural relaxation and glass transition in binary hard-spherical particle mixtures have been reported to exhibit unusual features depending on the size disparity and composition. However, the mechanism by which the mixing effects lead to these features and whether these features are universal for particles with anisotropic geometries remains unclear. Here, we employ event-driven molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the dynamical and structural properties of binary two-dimensional hard-ellipse mixtures. We find that the relaxation dynamics for translational degrees of freedom exhibit equivalent trends as those observed in binary hard-spherical mixtures. However, the glass transition densities for translational and rotational degrees of freedom present different dependencies on size disparity and composition. Furthermore, we propose a mechanism based on structural properties that explain the observed mixing effects and decoupling behavior between translational and rotational motions in binary hard-ellipse systems.