Phase behavior of binary mixtures of hollow and regular microgels†

Abstract

Soft colloids are widely used to study glass transition, aging and jamming. A high size polydispersity is typically introduced in these systems to avoid crystal formation. Here, we use binary mixtures of hollow and regular microgels with comparable sizes to inhibit crystallization. The phase behavior of the mixture is probed as a function of the number fraction of hollow microgels and characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering. Molecular dynamic simulations are used to extract the particle–particle pair potential and obtain insight on their deformation. The results suggest that the high deformability of the hollow microgels offers an alternative route to maximize the entropy without crystal formation.