Broken Symmetries in Quasi-2D Charged Systems via Negative Dielectric Confinement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that negative dielectric confinement can induce spontaneous symmetry breaking in symmetrically charged quasi-2D systems, leading to charge pattern formation without external fields, with implications for nanodevice design.

Contribution

It reveals a novel mechanism of symmetry breaking driven solely by dielectric confinement effects, supported by analytical and molecular dynamics simulation results.

Findings

Dielectric contrast influences the degree of symmetry breaking.

Charge-separated interfacial structures form on square lattices.

Lattice constants depend on dielectric mismatch and confinement scale.

Abstract

We report spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) phenomena in symmetrically charged binary particle systems under planar nanoconfinement with negative dielectric constants.The SSB is triggered $solely$ via the dielectric confinement effect, without any external fields. The mechanism of SSB is found to be caused by the strong polarization field enhanced by nanoconfinement, giving rise to charge/field oscillations in the transverse directions. Interestingly, dielectric contrast can even determine the degree of SSB in transverse and longitudinal dimensions, forming charge-separated interfacial liquids and clusters on square lattices. Furthermore, we analytically show that the formed lattice constant is determined by the dielectric mismatch and the length scale of confinement, which is validated via molecular dynamics simulations. The novel broken symmetry mechanism may provide new insights in the study of quasi-2D systems and the design of future nanodevices.