Transport and diffusion properties of interacting colloidal particles in two-dimensional microchannels with a periodic potential

Abstract

We report a Brownian dynamics simulation study of a two-dimensional system of repulsive colloidal particles in a channel geometry with a sinusoidal substrate potential under influence of a constant driving. The effect of this driving on the structure, mobility, and diffusion is discussed as well as the appearance of kink and antikink solitons. The competing order principles of the hexagonal crystal structure, the period of the substrate, and the layering due to the confining walls can be either commensurable or incommensurable. The combination of those three leads to new effects. The simultaneous occurrence of kinks and antikinks can be observed, due to the energy difference between boundary- and midlanes, and similarities to the electron-hole conductivity in a semiconductor can be found.