Contact-based and spheroidal vibrational modes of a hexagonal monolayer of microspheres on a substrate

Abstract: We study acoustic modes of a close-packed hexagonal lattice of spheres adhered to a substrate, propagating along a high-symmetry direction. The model, accounting for both normal and shear coupling between the spheres and between the spheres and the substrate, yields three contact-based vibrational modes involving both translational and rotational motion of the spheres. Furthermore, we study the effect of sphere-substrate and sphere-sphere contacts on spheroidal vibrational modes of the spheres within a perturbative approach. The sphere-substrate interaction results in a frequency upshift for the modes having a non-zero displacement at the contact point with the substrate. Sphere-sphere interactions result in dispersion of spheroidal modes turning them into propagating waves, albeit with a small group velocity. Analytical dispersion relations for both contact-based and spheroidal modes are presented and compared with results obtained for a square lattice.