Paper Number
CS39                         My Program 

Session
Colloidal Suspensions and Granular Materials

Title
Coherent x-rays reveal dynamics inhomogeneity in shear thickening colloids

Presentation Date and Time
October 22, 2025 (Wednesday) 1:30

Track / Room
Track 1 / Sweeney Ballroom A

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Lin, Xiao-Min (Argonne National Laboratory, Center for Nanoscale Materials)
  2. Horwath, James P. (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  3. He, Hongrui (Argonne National Laboratory, Materials Science Division, Center for Molecular Engineering)
  4. Lee, Jonghun (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  5. Jiang, Zhang (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  6. Chakraborty, Suman (Argonne National Laboratory, Center for Nanoscale Materials)
  7. Zhang, Qingteng (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  8. Dufresne, Eric M. (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  9. Sutton, Mark (McGill University, Department of Physics)
  10. Sandy, Alec (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)
  11. Narayanan, Suresh (Argonne National Laboratory, Advanced Photon Source)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Xiao-Min Lin1, James P. Horwath2, Hongrui He3, Jonghun Lee2, Zhang Jiang2, Suman Chakraborty1, Qingteng Zhang2, Eric M. Dufresne2, Mark Sutton4, Alec Sandy2 and Suresh Narayanan2
1Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60565; 2Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60565; 3Materials Science Division, Center for Molecular Engineering, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60565; 4Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Speaker / Presenter 
Lin, Xiao-Min

Keywords
experimental methods; colloids; microscopy; non-Newtonian fluids; particualte systems; rheometry; techniques

Text of Abstract
Shear thickening is a ubiquitous phenomenon that plays an important role in many industrial processes. Despite its importance, the intrinsic mechanism that drives shear thickening has long been under debate, particularly the role of friction between the particles. One phenomenological theory proposed by the Wyart and Cates suggests that discontinuous shear thickening (DST) may arise from part of the sample overcoming finite electrostatic, steric repulsion, or Brownian stress and developing frictional contact. However, little experimental evidence exists to support this model directly. Here, using x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS), we show the existence of an intrinsic heterodyne feature during shear cessation, which originates from the relative motion of mobile particles against an aggregated or jammed network induced by shear thickening. Upon removing the shear, the shear stress dissipates rather quickly in a two-step fashion, whereas the heterogeneous particle dynamics persist much longer with the relative velocity decaying slowly with time as t^-1. More importantly, both continuous shear thickening (CST) and DST show similar heterodyne features, indicating the intrinsic mechanisms causing shear thickening are similar in nature.