Two features at the two-dimensional freezing transitions

We studied the two-dimensional freezing transitions in monolayers of microgel colloidal spheres with short-ranged repulsions in video-microscopy experiments, and monolayers of hard disks, and Yukawa particles in simulations. These systems share two common features at the freezing points: (1) the bim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of chemical physics 2011-01, Vol.134 (3), p.034506-034506-7
Main Authors: Wang, Ziren, Qi, Weikai, Peng, Yi, Alsayed, Ahmed M., Chen, Yong, Tong, Penger, Han, Yilong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acrylamides - chemistry
Colloids - chemistry
Freezing
Gels - chemistry
Phase Transition
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Summary:We studied the two-dimensional freezing transitions in monolayers of microgel colloidal spheres with short-ranged repulsions in video-microscopy experiments, and monolayers of hard disks, and Yukawa particles in simulations. These systems share two common features at the freezing points: (1) the bimodal distribution profile of the local orientational order parameter; (2) the two-body excess entropy, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\begin{document}$s_2$\end{document} s 2 , reaches \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\begin{document}$-4.5\pm 0.5\,k_B$\end{document} − 4.5 ± 0.5 k B . Both features are robust and sensitive to the freezing points, so that they can potentially serve as empirical freezing criteria in two dimensions. Compared with the conventional freezing criteria, the first feature has no finite-size ambiguities and can be resolved adequately with much less statistics; and the second feature can be directly measured in macroscopic experiments without the need for microscopic information.
ISSN:0021-9606
1089-7690
DOI:10.1063/1.3545967