Laser-Induced Freezing

Abstract

Laser beams are crossed in a two-dimensional colloidal liquid of strongly interacting spherical particles to produce an external periodic potential and stimulate a density modulation. If the modulation wave vector is at the peak in the static structure factor, a sufficiently large potential induces a phase transition to a structure which exhibits solidlike order having density modes other than those directly excited. A Landau theory is presented and discussed in terms of our results.