Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 29: Crystallisation, Nucleation and Self assembly
CPP 29.1: Topical Talk
Mittwoch, 28. März 2012, 15:00–15:30, C 243
Observation of kinks and antikinks in colloidal monolayers driven across ordered surfaces — •Thomas Bohlein1,2, Jules Mikhael1, and Clemens Bechinger1,2 — 12. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Germany — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Stuttgart, Germany
Friction between solids is responsible for many phenomena like earthquakes, wear or crack propagation. Unlike macroscopic objects which only touch locally due to their surface roughness, spatially extended contacts form between atomically flat surfaces. They are described by the Frenkel-Kontorova (FK) model which considers a monolayer of interacting particles on a periodic substrate potential. In addition to the well-known stick-slip motion such models also predict the formation of kinks and antikinks which largely reduce the friction between the monolayer and the substrate. Here, we report the direct observation of kinks and antikinks in a two-dimensional colloidal crystal which is driven across different types of ordered substrates. We show that the frictional properties only depend on the number and density of such excitations which propagate through the monolayer along the direction of the applied force. In addition, we also observe kinks on quasicrystalline surfaces which demonstrates that they are not limited to periodic substrates but occur under more general conditions.