Optical Tweezers as a Micromechanical Tool for Studying Defects in 2D Colloidal Crystals
Abstract
This paper reports on some new results from the analyses of the video microscopy data obtained in a prior experiment on two-dimensional (2D) colloidal crystals. It was reported previously that optical tweezers can be used to create mono- and di-vacancies in a 2D colloidal crystal. Here we report the results on the creation of a vacancy-interstitial pair, as well as tri-vacancies. It is found that the vacancy-interstitial pair can be long-lived, but they do annihilate each other. The behavior of tri-vacancies is most intriguing, as it fluctuates between a configuration of bound pairs of dislocations and that of a locally amorphous state. The relevance of this observation to the issue of the nature of 2D melting is discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1108.1975,
title = {Optical Tweezers as a Micromechanical Tool for Studying Defects in 2D Colloidal Crystals},
author = {Sungcheol Kim and Lichao Yu and Stephanie Huang and Alexandros Pertsinidis and Xinsheng Sean Ling},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.1975},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures