Response of a colloidal gel to a microscopic oscillatory strain.

We study the microscopic mechanical response of colloidal gels by manipulating single probe particles within the network. For this work, we use a refractive index and density-matched suspension of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) particles with nonadsorbing polymer: polystyrene. As the polymer concentration increases, a dynamically arrested, space-filling network is formed, exhibiting structural transitions from a clusterlike to a more homogeneous stringlike gel phase, consistent with observations by Dibble and co-workers [C. J. Dibble, M. Kogan, and M. J. Solomon, Phys. Rev. E 74, 041403 (2006)]. In a gel, probe particles are oscillated with an optical trap, creating the local strain field in the network. We find that the micromechanics correlate strongly with the gel structure. At high polymer concentration, the average deformation field decays as 1/r to a distance quite close to the probe particle, as expected for a purely elastic material. In contrast, at lower polymer concentrations, gels exhibit anomalous strain fields in the near field; the strain plateaus, indicating that many particles move together with the probe. By rescaling the probe size in the theoretical model, we obtain a micromechanical gel correlation length, which is consistent with the structural difference in terms of "clusterlike" and "stringlike."