Abstract. We use a confocal microscope to examine the motion of individual particles in a dense colloidal suspension. Close to the glass transition, particle motion is strongly spatially correlated. The correlations decay exponentially with particle separation, yielding a dynamic length scale of O(2–3σ) (in terms of particle diameter σ). This length scale grows modestly as the glass transition is approached. Further, the correlated motion exhibits a strong spatial dependence on the pair correlation function g(r). Motion within glassy samples is weakly correlated, but with a larger spatial scale for this correlation.

Print publication: Issue 20 (23 May 2007)
Received 6 October 2006
Published 25 April 2007