Abstract

We study the dynamics of translational and rotational diffusion during the aging of the colloidal glass of Laponite using polarized and depolarized dynamic light scattering. The dynamics are qualitatively very similar between the two degrees of freedom. The short-time diffusion is independent of the time elapsed since the sample preparation. The intermediate- and long-time diffusion, on the other hand, changes over several orders of magnitude during the aging, the slowing down of the rotational diffusion being much faster than that of the translational diffusion.

© 2004 Optical Society of America