The experimental realization of a two-dimensional colloidal model system
arXiv:0903.2808 · doi:10.1063/1.3188948
Abstract
We present the technical details of an experimental method to realize a model system for 2D phase transitions and the glass transition. The system consists of several hundred thousand colloidal super-paramagnetic particles confined by gravity at a flat water-air interface of a pending water droplet where they are subjected to Brownian motion. The dipolar pair potential and therefore the system temperature is not only known precisely but also directly and instantaneously controllable via an external magnetic field B. In case of a one component system of monodisperse particles the system can crystallize upon application of B whereas in a two component system it undergoes a glass transition. Up to 10000 particles are observed by video microscopy and image processing provides their trajectories on all relative length and time scales. The position of the interface is actively regulated thereby reducing surface fluctuations to less than one micron and the setup inclination is controlled to an accuracy of 1 microrad. The sample quality being necessary to enable the experimental investigation of the 2D melting scenario, 2D crystallization, and the 2D glass transition, is discussed.
13 pages, 11 figures
References in corpus (6)
- Crystallization of a quasi-two-dimensional granular fluid
- Frank's constant in the hexatic phase
- Approach to jamming in an air-fluidized granular bed
- Partial Clustering in Binary Two-Dimensional Colloidal Suspensions
- Dynamic Glass Transition in Two Dimensions
- Ultra-fast quenching of binary colloidal suspensions in an external magnetic field
Cited by in corpus (24)
- The Physics of the Colloidal Glass Transition
- Mermin-Wagner fluctuations in 2D amorphous solids
- Long Wavelength Fluctuations and the Glass Transition in 2D and 3D
- Colloidal Microworms Propelling via a Cooperative Hydrodynamic Conveyor Belt
- Two-dimensional melting under quenched disorder
- Dynamics of particles and cages in an experimental 2D glass former
- Glass elasticity from particle trajectories
- Tests of mode-coupling theory in two dimensions
- Comparison of 2D melting criteria in a colloidal system
- Strain pattern in supercooled liquids
- Dynamics of two-dimensional dipole systems
- Discontinuous shear modulus determines the glass transition temperature
- Experimental identification of topological defects in 2D colloidal glass
- On the metastability of the hexatic phase during the melting of two-dimensional charged particle solids
- Vacancy diffusion in colloidal crystals as determined by dynamical density-functional theory and the phase-field-crystal model
- Self-organized defect strings in two-dimensional crystals
- Glass transition of binary mixtures of dipolar particles in two dimensions
- The Liquid--Hexatic Transition for Soft Disks
- Langevin Dynamics simulations of a 2-dimensional colloidal crystal under confinement and shear
- Inherent-State Melting and the Onset of Glassy Dynamics in Two-Dimensional Supercooled Liquids
- Viscosity of a sheared correlated (near-critical) model fluid in confinement
- Entropy and Kinetics of Point-Defects in Two-Dimensional Dipolar Crystals
- Computer simulations of colloidal transport on a patterned magnetic substrate
- Direct observation of crystal nucleation and growth in a quasi-two-dimensional nonvibrating granular system