Colloids in narrow channels: evidence of freezing in one-dimension?
S. Herrera-Velarde , R. Castaneda-Priego

Division de Ciencias e Ingenierias, Campus Leon, de la Universidad de Guanajuato. Loma del Bosque 103, Col. Lomas del Campestre, 37150 Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico

Abstract: We study both the structural and dynamic properties of colloidal particles confined in narrow channels by means of Brownian dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. We here consider different types of particle interactions, namely screened Coulomb, superparamagnetic and WCA interactions. In each case, we find that at low densities the system exhibits a typical fluid-like structure. However, at higher densities the system undergoes a freezing-like transition. We observe that such transition is reached when the main peak of the static structure factor takes a value of about 7. We also observed that the mean-square displacement, W(t), shows the well-known crossover from normal diffusion at short-times to sub-diffusion at long-times in which W(t) = 2Ft^1/2, However, when the freezing-like transition is achieved the reduced mobility factor F, decreases dramatically taking values approximately of 0.05. Those features allow us to establish both static and dynamic criteria for determining the solid-like transition.