Landscape-Inversion Phase Transition in Dipolar Colloids: Tuning the Structure and Dynamics of 2D Crystals
arXiv:1602.01810 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.198301
Abstract
We study the 2D crystalline phases of paramagnetic colloidal particles with dipolar interactions and constrained on a periodic substrate. Combining theory, simulation, and experiments we demonstrate a new scenario of first-order phase transitions that occurs via a complete inversion of the energy landscape, featuring non-conventional properties that allow for: (i) tuning of crystal symmetry; (ii) control of dynamical properties of different crystalline orders via tuning of their relative stability with an external magnetic field; (iii) an equivalent but independent control of the same dynamic properties via temporal modulations of that field; and (iv) non-standard phase-ordering kinetics involving spontaneous formation of transient metastable domains.
References in corpus (4)
- Visualizing kinetic pathways of homogeneous nucleation in colloidal crystallization
- Simple models for two-dimensional tunable colloidal crystals in rotating ac electric fields
- Melting of Colloidal Molecular Crystals on Triangular Lattices
- The structure and dynamics of self-assembling colloidal monolayers in oscillating magnetic fields