Crystallization of magnetic dipolar monolayers: a density functional approach

Abstract

We employ density functional theory to study in detail the crystallization of super-paramagnetic particles in two dimensions under the influence of an external magnetic field that lies perpendicular to the confining plane. The field induces non-fluctuating magnetic dipoles on the particles, resulting into an interparticle interaction that scales as the inverse cube of the distance separating them. In line with previous findings for long-range interactions in three spatial dimensions, we find that explicit inclusion of liquid-state structural information on the {\it triplet} correlations is crucial to yield theoretical predictions that agree quantitatively with experiment. A non-perturbative treatment is superior to the oft-employed functional Taylor expansions, truncated at second or third order. We go beyond the usual Gaussian parametrization of the density site-orbitals by performing free minimizations with respect to both the shape and the normalization of the profiles, allowing for finite defect concentrations.

23 pages, 18 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Dynamic Density Functional Theory of Fluids
• Dynamical density functional theory and its application to spinodal decomposition
• Colloidal crystal growth at externally imposed nucleation clusters
• Computer simulations of two-dimensional melting with dipole-dipole interactions
• Mean-field dynamical density functional theory
• Density functional theory of freezing for soft interactions in two dimensions

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• Flow of colloidal solids and fluids through constrictions: dynamical density functional theory versus simulation
• Vacancy diffusion in colloidal crystals as determined by dynamical density-functional theory and the phase-field-crystal model
• Quasicrystal formation in binary soft matter mixtures
• Density-functional theory for the crystalline phases of a two-dimensional dipolar Fermi gas
• Classical density functional theory for a two-dimensional isotropic ferrogel model with labeled particles
• Density functional theory for the crystallization of two-dimensional dipolar colloidal alloys
• Integral Equation Theory for Pair Correlation Functions in a Crystal
• Freezing of a two dimensional fluid in to a crystalline phase : Density functional approach
• Density functional approach to elastic properties of three-dimensional dipole-spring models for magnetic gels