Motion, relaxation dynamics, and diffusion processes in two-dimensional colloidal crystals confined between walls

The dynamical behavior of single-component two-dimensional colloidal crystals confined in a slit geometry is studied by Langevin dynamics simulation of a simple model. The colloids are modeled as pointlike particles, interacting with the repulsive part of the Lennard-Jones potential, and the fluid molecules in the colloidal suspension are not explicitly considered. Considering a crystalline strip of triangular lattice structure with n = 30 rows, the (one-dimensional) walls confining the strip are chosen as two rigidly fixed crystalline rows at each side, commensurate with the lattice structure and, thus, stabilizing long-range order. The case when the spacing between the walls is incommensurate with the ideal triangular lattice is also studied, where (due to a transition in the number of rows, n -> n - 1) the confined crystal is incommensurate with the confining boundaries, and a soliton staircase forms along the walls. It is shown that mean-square displacements (MSDs) of particles as a function of time show an overshoot and then saturate at a horizontal plateau in the commensurate case, the value of the plateau being largest in the center of the strip. Conversely, when solitons are present, MSDs are largest in the rows containing the solitons, and all MSDs do not settle down at well-defined plateaus in the direction parallel to the boundaries, due to the lack of positional long-range order in ideal two-dimensional crystals. The MSDs of the solitons (which can be treated like quasiparticles at very low temperature) have also been studied and their dynamics are found to be about an order of magnitude slower than that of the colloidal particles themselves. Finally, transport of individual colloidal particles by diffusion processes is studied: both standard vacancy-interstitial pair formation and cooperative ring rotation processes are identified. These processes require thermal activation, with activation energies of the order of 10T(m) (T-m being the melting temperature of the crystal), while the motions due to long-wavelength phonons decrease only linearly in temperature.