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Updated: Jun 22, 2025

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Dynamic ordering transitions in charged solid
Jian Sun1, Jiasen Niu1, Yifan Li1
1International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Abstract:
The phenomenon of group motion is common in nature, ranging from the schools of fish, birds and insects, to avalanches, landslides and sand drift. If we treat objects as collectively moving particles, such phenomena can be studied from a physical point of view, and the research on many-body systems has proved that marvelous effects can arise from the simplest individuals. The motion of numerous individuals presents different dynamic phases related to the ordering of the system. However, it is usually difficult to study the dynamic ordering and its transitions through experiments. Electron bubble states formed in a two-dimensional electron gas, as a type of electron solids, can be driven by an external electric field and provide a platform to study the dynamic collective behaviors. Here, we demonstrate that the noise spectrum is a powerful method to investigate the dynamics of bubble states. We observed not only the phenomena of dynamically ordered and disordered structures, but also unexpected alternations between them. Our results show that a dissipative system can convert between chaotic structures and ordered structures when tuning global parameters, which is concealed in conventional transport measurements of resistance or conductance. Moreover, charging the objects to study the electrical noise spectrum in collective motions can be an additional approach to revealing dynamic ordering transitions.
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