THE GLASS-TRANSITION IN COLLOIDAL HARD-SPHERES

Dynamic light-scattering measurements on suspensions of hard colloidal spheres, in their metastable amorphous state prior to crystallization , identify the kinetic glass transition by the arrest of particle-conc entration fluctuations on the experimental time-scale. This kinetic gl ass transition coincides with a spectacular change in the mechanism of crystallization. The measured intermediate scattering functions are q uantitatively interpreted by mode-coupling theory. We find that both a lpha and beta processes are necessary to describe the slow structural relaxation in the fluid near the glass transition.