Eur. Phys. J. B 50, 549-557 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00183-0

Determination of the interactions in confined macroscopic Wigner islands: theory and experiments

¹ Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes, UMR 7057 CNRS & Université Paris 7 – 2 place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France
² Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes, UMR 7057 CNRS & Université Paris 7 – 140 rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris, France
³ Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique, UMR 7083 CNRS – ESPCI, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

Corresponding author: ^a gwennou.coupier@paris7.jussieu.fr

Received: 7 December 2005
Published online: 17 May 2006

Abstract

Macroscopic Wigner islands present an interesting complementary approach to explore the properties of two-dimensional confined particles systems. In this work, we characterize theoretically and experimentally the interaction between their basic components, viz., conducting spheres lying on the bottom electrode of a plane condenser. We show that the interaction energy can be approximately described by a decaying exponential as well as by a modified Bessel function of the second kind. In particular, this implies that the interactions in this system, whose characteristics are easily controllable, are the same as those between vortices in type-II superconductors.