Universal mechanism of shear thinning in supercooled liquids

Abstract

Soft glassy materials experience a significant reduction in viscosity η when subjected to shear flow, known as shear thinning. This phenomenon is characterized by a power-law scaling of η with the shear rate $$\dot{\gamma }$$ , $$\eta \propto {\dot{\gamma }}^{-\nu }$$ , where the exponent ν is typically around 0.7 to 0.8 across different materials. Two decades ago, the mode-coupling theory (MCT) suggested that shear thinning occurs due to the advection. However, it predicts too large ν = 1 ( > 0.7 to 0.8) and overestimates the onset shear rate by orders of magnitude. Recently, it was claimed that a minute distortion of the particle configuration is responsible for shear thinning. Here we extend the MCT to include the distortion, and find that both advection and distortion contribute to shear thinning, but the latter is dominant. Our formulation works quantitatively for several different glass formers. We explain why shear thinning is universal for many glassy materials. Despite the importance of shear-thinning rheology which many glassy materials universally experience under shear flow, significant discrepancies between theoretical explanations and experimental observations have remained unaddressed for over two decades. Here the authors renovate the theory to address these discrepancies and establish a universal mechanism of shear thinning.