Impurity-induced defects play a crucial role for the properties of crystals, but little is known about impurities with anisotropic shape. Here, we study how colloidal dumbbells distort and interact with a hexagonal crystal of charged colloidal spheres at a fluid interface. We find that subtle changes in the dumbbell length induce a transition from a local distortion to a particle-bound dislocation, and determine how the dumbbell moves inside the repulsive hexagonal lattice. Our results provide new routes towards controlling material properties through particle-bound dislocations.
@article{arxiv.2010.00267,
title = {Dumbbell impurities in 2D crystals of repulsive colloidal spheres induce particle-bound dislocations},
author = {Vera Meester and Casper van der Wel and Ruben W. Verweij and Giovanni Biondaro and Daniela J. Kraft},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.00267},
year = {2020}
}