Kinks in Coulomb’s chains

Abstract

Chains of identical ions, for which the dominant interaction is the electrostatic repulsion, appear in layered silicates. The ions can move almost from site to site. The chains do not explode because the surrounding media has a net negative charge which screens the Coulomb’s repulsion and become attractive when the ions separate two much. Moreover there is a border effect which keeps the ions within the crystal. We have been able to obtain moving supersonic kinks that keep their shape and cross nicely one with each other and can travel over the surrounding sea of phonons. Their energies can be very different, from the order of eVs to hundreds of them. Therefore they can influence many different processes within silicates.