Rich Polymorphic Behavior of Wigner Bilayers.
Self-assembly into target structures is an efficient material design strategy. Combining analytical calculations and computational techniques of evolutionary and Monte Carlo types, we report about a remarkable structural variability of Wigner bilayer ground states, when charges are confined between parallel charged plates. Changing the interlayer separation, or the plate charge asymmetry, a cascade of ordered patterns emerges. At variance with the symmetric case phenomenology, the competition between commensurability features and charge neutralization leads to long range attraction, appearance of macroscopic charges, exotic phases, and nonconventional phase transitions with distinct critical indices, offering the possibility of a subtle, but precise and convenient control over patterns.
Institute for Theoretical Physics and Center for Computational Materials Science (CMS), Vienna University of Technology, A-1040 Wien, Austria.|LPT (UMR 8627), CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405 Orsay, France.
Moritz
M
Antlanger
Institute for Theoretical Physics and Center for Computational Materials Science (CMS), Vienna University of Technology, A-1040 Wien, Austria.
Gerhard
G
Kahl
LPT (UMR 8627), CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405 Orsay, France.
Martial
M
Mazars
Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, SK-84511 Bratislava, Slovakia.|LPTMS, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405 Orsay, France.
Ladislav
L
Šamaj
LPTMS, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91405 Orsay, France.
Emmanuel
E
Trizac