Colloidal crystallites under external oscillation

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.