Filamentous phages as building blocks for reconfigurable and hierarchical self-assembly

Filamentous bacteriophages such as fd-like viruses are monodisperse rod-like colloids that have well defined properties: diameter, length, rigidity, charge and chirality. Engineering those viruses leads to a library of colloidal rods which can be used as building blocks for reconfigurable and hierarchical self-assembly. Their condensation in aqueous solution \th{with additive polymers which act as depletants to induce} attraction between the rods leads to a myriad of fluid-like micronic structures ranging from isotropic/nematic droplets, colloid membranes, achiral membrane seeds, twisted ribbons, $\pi$-wall, pores, colloidal skyrmions, M\"obius anchors, scallop membranes to membrane rafts. Those structures and the way they shape shift not only shed light on the role of entropy, chiral frustration and topology in soft matter but it also mimics many structures encountered in different fields of science. On one hand, filamentous phages being an experimental realization of colloidal hard rods, their condensation mediated by depletion interactions constitutes a blueprint for self-assembly of rod-like particles and provides fundamental foundation for bio- or material oriented applications. On the other hand, the chiral properties of the viruses restrict the generalities of some results but vastly broaden the self-assembly possibilities

Influence of boundary conditions on yielding in a soft glassy material

The yielding behavior of a sheared Laponite suspension is investigated within a 1 mm gap under two different boundary conditions. No-slip conditions, ensured by using rough walls, lead to shear localization as already reported in various soft glassy materials. When apparent wall slip is allowed using a smooth geometry, the sample is shown to break up into macroscopic solid pieces that get slowly eroded by the surrounding fluidized material up to the point where the whole sample is fluid. Such a drastic effect of boundary conditions on yielding suggests the existence of some macroscopic characteristic length that could be connected to cooperativity effects in jammed materials under shear.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The yielding dynamics of a colloidal gel

Attractive colloidal gels display a solid-to-fluid transition as shear stresses above the yield stress are applied. This shear-induced transition is involved in virtually any application of colloidal gels. It is also crucial for controlling material properties. Still, in spite of its ubiquity, the yielding transition is far from understood, mainly because rheological measurements are spatially averaged over the whole sample. Here, the instrumentation of creep and oscillatory shear experiments with high-frequency ultrasound opens new routes to observing the local dynamics of opaque attractive colloidal gels. The transition proceeds from the cell walls and heterogeneously fluidizes the whole sample with a characteristic time whose variations with applied stress suggest the existence of an energy barrier linked to the gelation process. The present results provide new test grounds for computer simulations and theoretical calculations in the attempt to better understand the yielding transition. The versatility of the technique should also allow extensive mesoscopic studies of rupture mechanisms in soft solids ranging from crystals to glassy materials.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Shear-induced fragmentation of Laponite suspensions

Simultaneous rheological and velocity profile measurements are performed in a smooth Couette geometry on Laponite suspensions seeded with glass microspheres and undergoing the shear-induced solid-to-fluid (or yielding) transition. Under these slippery boundary conditions, a rich temporal behaviour is uncovered, in which shear localization is observed at short times, that rapidly gives way to a highly heterogeneous flow characterized by intermittent switching from plug-like flow to linear velocity profiles. Such a temporal behaviour is linked to the fragmentation of the initially solid sample into blocks separated by fluidized regions. These solid pieces get progressively eroded over time scales ranging from a few minutes to several hours depending on the applied shear rate $\dot{\gamma}$. The steady-state is characterized by a homogeneous flow with almost negligible wall slip. The characteristic time scale for erosion is shown to diverge below some critical shear rate $\dot{\gamma}^\star$ and to scale as $(\dot{\gamma}-\dot{\gamma}^\star)^{-n}$ with $n\simeq 2$ above $\dot{\gamma}^\star$. A tentative model for erosion is discussed together with open questions raised by the present results.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Soft Matte

Local Oscillatory Rheology from Echography

Local Oscillatory Rheology from Echography (LORE) consists in a traditional rheology experiment synchronized with high-frequency ultrasonic imaging which gives access to the local material response to oscillatory shear. Besides classical global rheological quantities, this method provides quantitative time-resolved information on the local displacement across the entire gap of the rheometer. From the local displacement response, we compute and decompose the local strain in its Fourier components and measure the spatially-resolved viscoelastic moduli. After benchmarking our method on homogeneous Newtonian fluids and soft solids, we demonstrate that this technique is well suited to characterize spatially heterogeneous samples, wall slip, and the emergence of nonlinearity under large amplitude oscillatory stress in soft materials.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Applie

Interplay between Spinodal Decomposition and Glass Formation in Proteins Exhibiting Short-Range Attractions

We investigate the competition between spinodal decomposition and dynamical arrest using aqueous solutions of the globular protein lysozyme as a model system for colloids with short-range attractions. We show that quenches below a temperature Ta lead to gel formation as a result of a local arrest of the proteindense phase during spinodal decomposition. The rheological properties of these gels allow us to use centrifugation experiments to determine the local densities of both phases and to precisely locate the gel boundary and the attractive glass line close to and within the unstable region of the phase diagram