Pinning and Tribology of Tethered Monolayers on Disordered Substrates

Abstract

We study the statistical mechanics and dynamics of crystalline films with a fixed internal connectivity on a random substrate. Defect free triangular lattices exhibit a sharp transition to a low temperature glassy phase with anomalous phonon fluctuations and a nonlinear force-displacement law with a continuously variable exponent, similar to the vortex glass phase of directed lines in 1+1 dimensions. The periodicity of the tethered monolayer acts like a filter which amplifies particular Fourier components of the disorder. However, the absence of annealed topological defects like dislocations is crucial: the transition is destroyed when the constraint of fixed connectivity is relaxed and dislocations are allowed to proliferate.