Ordering of Binary Colloidal Crystals by Random Potentials

摘要: Structural defects are ubiquitous in condensed matter, and not always a nuisance. For example, they underlie phenomena such as Anderson localization hyperuniformity, now being exploited to engineer novel materials. Here, we show experimentally that the density of structural 2D binary colloidal crystal can be engineered with random potential. We generate potential using an optical speckle pattern, whose induced forces act strongly on one species particles (strong particles) weakly other (weak particles). Thus, strong more attracted randomly distributed local minima potential, leaving trail crystalline structure crystal. While, expected, ordering initially decreases increasing fraction particles, order is surprisingly recovered for sufficiently large fractions. confirm our experimental results particle-based simulations, which permit us elucidate how this non-monotonic behavior from competition between particle-potential particle-particle interactions.