Granular ionic crystals in a small nutshell

Abstract

Ordered two-dimensional arrangements of triboelectrically oppositely charged granular particles have been reported several times, but observations of bulk ordered binary granular particle packings are singular. We attribute this suppression of triboelectrically induced order to the concurrent behaviour of granular particles to pack densest due to gravity. We show that triboelectrically induced order robustly emerges in a container that does not allow for crystallization into a dense packing under gravity. It turns out that the triboelectrically ordered structure follows Pauling's predictions for atomic ionic crystals in many aspects, but also exhibits systematic deviations. We discuss how the emergence of order in an incommensurate container, the deviations from Pauling's predictions and the gravitational potential energy of the particles are connected.