0000000000173768
AUTHOR
Yu-hang Chui
The Observation of Formation and Annihilation of Solitons and Standing Strain Wave Superstructures in a Two-Dimensional Colloidal Crystal
Confining a colloidal crystal within a long narrow channel produced by two parallel walls can be used to impose a meso-scale superstructure of a predominantly mechanical elastic character [Chui et al., EPL 2008, 83, 58004]. When the crystal is compressed in the direction perpendicular to the walls, we obtain a structural transition when the number of rows of particles parallel to the walls decreases by one. All the particles of this vanishing row are distributed throughout the crystal. If the confining walls are structured (say with a corrugation along the length of the walls), then these extra particles are distributed neither uniformly nor randomly; rather, defect structures are created a…
Confined Crystals on Substrates: Order and Fluctuations in Between One and Two Dimensions
The effect of lateral confinement on a crystal of point particles in d = 2 dimensions in a strip geometry is studied by Monte Carlo simulations and using phe- nomenological theoretical concepts. Physically, such systems confined in long strips of width D can be realized via colloidal particles at the air-water interface, or by adsorbed monolayers at suitably nanopatterned substrates, etc. As a generic model, we choose a repulsive interparticle potential decaying with the twelfth inverse power of distance. This system has been well studied in the bulk as a model for two- dimensional melting. The state of the system is found to depend very sensitively on the boundary conditions providing the …
Soliton staircases and standing strain waves in confined colloidal crystals
We show by computer simulation of a two-dimensional crystal confined by corrugated walls that confinement can be used to impose a controllable mesoscopic superstructure of predominantly mechanical elastic character. Due to an interplay of the particle density of the system and the width D of the confining channel, "soliton staircases" can be created along both parallel confining boundaries, that give rise to standing strain waves in the entire crystal. The periodicity of these waves is of the same order as D. This mechanism should be useful for structure formation in the self-assembly of various nanoscopic materials.