Gas-liquid transition in a two-dimensional system of millimeter-sized like-charged metal balls
Metal balls with a diameter of 1.59 mm, gently rubbed against a dielectric surface using a shaker, are seen to spontaneously exhibit a two-dimensional liquidlike order with macroscopic dimensions, viz., interball distances of several millimeters. This liquidlike order transforms to a gaslike order through coexistence upon decreasing the area fraction of the balls. The measured pair interaction of like-charged balls surprisingly exhibits a long-range attractive term analogous to that in charged colloids.
Tata
BV
Department of Chemical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois 60616 and Materials Science Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 603 102, Tamil Nadu, India.
Rajamani
PV
Chakrabarti
J
Nikolov
A
Wasan
DT