Dynamic phases of colloidal monolayers sliding on commensurate substrates
- Author(s)
- Jaffar Hasnain, Swetlana Jungblut, Christoph Dellago
- Abstract
We report on numerical simulations of a monolayer of charge-stabilized colloids driven over a substrate potential by an external dc force acting along a symmetry axis of the monolayer. Using overdamped Langevin dynamics, we studied the sliding transition for various inter-particle interaction strengths as a function of the driving force. For weak interactions, the diffusion of individual defects is responsible for the motion of the monolayer. As the interaction strength is increased, sliding is induced by distinct density compression and decompression zones. For very strong interactions, a type of stick-slip mechanism emerges, in which the sliding of the monolayer is mediated by the propagation of collective distortion waves. Our predictions can be tested experimentally with two-dimensional arrangements of colloidal particles exposed to periodic light fields and our work shows that the inter-particle interaction strength tunes the degree of correlation in the sliding mechanism adopted by a monolayer driven over a commensurate substrate.
- Organisation(s)
- Computational and Soft Matter Physics
- Journal
- Soft Matter
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 5867-5873
- No. of pages
- 7
- ISSN
- 1744-683X
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1039/c3sm50458a
- Publication date
- 2013
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103036 Theoretical physics, 103015 Condensed matter, 103029 Statistical physics
- Keywords
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4a3434f8-4c66-4302-8cca-f2cab7b78fe3