Realizing Colloidal Artificial Ice on Arrays of Optical Traps

Abstract

We demonstrate how a colloidal version of artificial ice can be realized on optical trap lattices. Using numerical simulations, we show that this system obeys the ice rules and that for strong colloid-colloid interactions, an ordered ground state appears. We show that the ice rule ordering can occur for systems with as few as twenty-four traps and that the ordering transition can be observed at constant temperature by varying the barrier strength of the traps.

4 pages, 3 postscript figures; version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett