# Direct observation of percolation in the yielding transition of colloidal glasses

## TL;DR

This study combines experiments, simulations, and modeling to reveal that the yielding transition in colloidal glasses involves the percolation of non-affine deformation clusters, characterized by fractal structures and diverging correlation length.

## Contribution

It provides the first microscopic evidence linking percolation of non-affine particles to the yielding transition in colloidal glasses.

## Key findings

- Growing non-affine deformation clusters percolate at yielding
- The spanning cluster is fractal with dimension ~2
- Correlation length diverges near critical yield strain

## Abstract

When strained beyond the linear regime, soft colloidal glasses yield to steady-state plastic flow in a way that is similar to the deformation of conventional amorphous solids. Due to the much larger size of the colloidal particles with respect to the atoms comprising an amorphous solid, colloidal glasses allow to obtain microscopic insight into the nature of the yielding transition, as we illustrate here combining experiments, atomistic simulations, and mesoscopic modeling. Our results unanimously show growing clusters of non-affine deformation percolating at yielding. In agreement with percolation theory, the spanning cluster is fractal with a fractal dimension d_f~2, and the correlation length diverges upon approaching the critical yield strain. These results indicate that percolation of highly non-affine particles is the hallmark of the yielding transition in disordered glassy systems.