2017 Volume 58 Issue 3 Pages 420-422
The cooling rate with which the liquid is cooled has tremendous impact on the macroscopic properties of amorphous solids, but little information on the underlying mechanism for this dependence is available, mainly due to the lack of clear characterization on the microstructural variation induced by cooling rate. We built a colloidal glass to obtain its direct three-dimensional configuration by using laser scanning confocal microscopy and investigate the effect of cooling rate on microstructure. By quantifying coordination numbers and bond-angle distribution, we give evidence that the icosahedral-like structure is the most frequent local structure and more favored by the lower cooling rate.