The effect of free polymer on the glass transition dynamics of microgel colloids

Abstract From the phase behavior we establish that 1:10 crosslinked polystyrene microgel colloids in a good solvent can be considered as hard spheres whereas 1:50 crosslinked particles are slightly softer. Nevertheless, the glass transition dynamics of 1:10 microgels and a binary mixtures of 1:50 microgels can be described in both cases within the mode coupling theory for hard spheres. The only difference is that the increase of the polydispersity from about 7% to about 13% when going from the one-component system to the mixture is accompanied by a shift of the glass transition from ϕ g ≈0.56 to ϕ g ≈0.595. On addition of linear polystyrene to the 1:50 binary mixture we find a tremendous ac…

We have determined by forced Rayleigh scattering the diffusion coefficients of photo-labeled polystyrene micronetwork spheres (radii ≤ 10 nm) in melts of linear polyvinylmethylether (M W ≤ 40000 g/mol) at temperatures of 20-80°C. An expected slippage of the spheres through the meshes of the entanglement network appears possible but is still within the experimental uncertainty of our results.