Microstructural and rheological training and memory of nanocolloidal soft glasses under cyclic shear

The ability to alter the properties of amorphous solids through mechanical deformation is an important engineering strategy and provides an insightful perspective into the nature of their out-of-equilibrium states. This study utilizes simultaneous rheology and coherent x-ray scattering to gain understanding of how repeated cyclic shear modifies a thermal, bulk (3D) nanocolloidal glass and further how a memory of this mechanical history becomes encoded such that it can be subsequently probed through mechanical and microstructural characterization. Connections are thereby established between rheological memory of soft glassy materials at microscopic and macroscopic scales.