April 1 , 2009
3 pm in Howey Physics Room N110

 

Mark Bowick
Department of Physics, Syracuse University

"Order on Curved Interfaces"

 

Repulsively interacting particles on planar interfaces will almost   always form a perfect triangular lattice in the crystalline ground state. Curving the interface to some two-dimensional manifold leads to variety of striking phenomena even at zero temperature. These include extended arrays of topological defects, curvature-induced unbinding of defects and fractionalization of interstitials. I will discuss these effects and the applications to the design of mesoscale units (superatoms) that can in turn form supermolecules and potentially novel bulk materials.