title: Gas-liquid transition in a two-dimensional system of millimeter-sized like-charged metal balls
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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.
authors.initials: BV
authors.lastname: Tata
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Rajamani
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chakrabarti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nikolov
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wasan