  Confining a colloidal crystal within a long narrow channel produced by two
parallel walls can be used to impose a meso-scale superstructure of a
predominantly mechanical elastic character [Chui et al., EPL 2008, 83, 58004].
When the crystal is compressed in the direction perpendicular to the walls, we
obtain a structural transition when the number of rows of particles parallel to
the walls decreases by one. All the particles of this vanishing row are
distributed throughout the crystal. If the confining walls are structured (say
with a corrugation along the length of the walls), then these extra particles
are distributed neither uniformly nor randomly; rather, defect structures are
created along the boundaries resembling "soliton staircases", inducing a
non-uniform strain pattern within the crystal. Here we study the conditions of
stability, formation and annihilation of these solitons using a coarse grained
description of the dynamics. The processes are shown by comparing superimposed
configurations as well as molecular animations obtained from our simulations.
Also the corresponding normal and shear stresses during the transformation are
calculated. A study of these dynamical processes should be useful for
controlling strain wave superstructures in the self-assembly of various nano-
and meso scaled particles.
