Colloidal crystallites under external oscillation
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Updated: Dec 18, 2025

Preparation of Liquid Crystal Networks for Macroscopic Oscillatory Motion Induced by Light
Published on: September 20, 2017
Hreedish Kakoty1, Yunhu Huang2, Rajarshi Banerjee1
1Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India.
Abstract:
We study the two-dimensional assemblies of interacting colloidal particles in a loosely focussed optical trap. As the optical confinement is increased, the system becomes ordered and we investigate how these crystallites maintain their order under externally imposed oscillation. For small amplitudes, the crystalline order remains intact and the system behaves like a rigid body as predicted by numerical simulations. However, the rigidity breaks at large amplitudes, which we infer to be caused by the anharmonic component of the confinement potential. These studies are general enough to be applied to other physical systems comprising ordered finite-sized assemblies under external dynamic perturbation.
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