Catherine Marcoux

Phase Transformations in Binary Colloidal Monolayers

Phase transformations can be difficult to characterize at the microscopic level due to the inability to directly observe individual atomic motions. Model colloidal systems, by contrast, permit the direct observation of individual particle dynamics and of collective rearrangements, which allows for real-space characterization of phase transitions. Here, we study a quasi-two-dimensional, binary colloidal alloy that exhibits liquid-solid and solid-solid phase transitions, focusing on the kinetics of a diffusionless transformation between two crystal phases. Experiments are conducted on a monolayer of magnetic and nonmagnetic spheres suspended in a thin layer of ferrofluid and exposed to a tunable magnetic field. A theoretical model of hard spheres with point dipoles at their centers is used to guide the choice of experimental parameters and characterize the underlying materials physics. When the applied field is normal to the fluid layer, a checkerboard crystal forms; when the angle between the field and the normal is sufficiently large, a striped crystal assembles. As the field is slowly tilted away from the normal, we find that the transformation pathway between the two phases depends strongly on crystal orientation, field strength, and degree of confinement of the monolayer. In some cases, the pathway occurs by smooth magnetostrictive shear, while in others it involves the sudden formation of martensitic plates.

Sparse phonon modes of a limit-periodic structure

Limit-periodic structures are well ordered but nonperiodic, and hence have nontrivial vibrational modes. We study a ball and spring model with a limit-periodic pattern of spring stiffnesses and identify a set of extended modes with arbitrarily low participation ratios, a situation that appears to be unique to limit-periodic systems. The balls that oscillate with large amplitude in these modes live on periodic nets with arbitrarily large lattice constants. By studying periodic approximants to the limit-periodic structure, we present numerical evidence for the existence of such modes, and we give a heuristic explanation of their structure.

Emergence of limit-periodic order in tiling models.

A two-dimensional (2D) lattice model defined on a triangular lattice with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interactions based on the Taylor-Socolar monotile is known to have a limit-periodic ground state. The system reaches that state during a slow quench through an infinite sequence of phase transitions. We study the model as a function of the strength of the next-nearest-neighbor interactions and introduce closely related 3D models with only nearest-neighbor interactions that exhibit limit-periodic phases. For models with no next-nearest-neighbor interactions of the Taylor-Socolar type, there is a large degenerate class of ground states, including crystalline patterns and limit-periodic ones, but a slow quench still yields the limit-periodic state. For the Taylor-Socolar lattic model, we present calculations of the diffraction pattern for a particular decoration of the tile that permits exact expressions for the amplitudes and identify domain walls that slow the relaxation times in the ordered phases. For one of the 3D models, we show that the phase transitions are first order, with equilibrium structures that can be more complex than in the 2D case, and we include a proof of aperiodicity for a geometrically simple tile with only nearest-neighbor matching rules.

Formation of limit-periodic structures by quadrupole particles confined to a triangular lattice

We have performed Monte Carlo (MC) simulations on two-dimensional systems of quadrupole particles confined to a triangular lattice in order to determine the conditions that permit the formation of a limit-periodic phase. We have found that limit-periodic structures form only when the rotations of the particles are confined to a set of six orientations aligned with the lattice directions. Related structures including striped and unidirectional rattler phases form when π/π66 rotations or continuous rotations are allowed. Order parameters signaling the formation of the limit-periodic structure and related structures are measured as a function of temperature. Our findings on the formation of the limit-periodic structure elucidate features relevant to the experimental creation of such a structure, which is expected to have interesting vibrational and electromagnetic modes.