Nucleation of wetting layers

Equilibration dynamics of wetting layers

A direct and quantitative investigation of the transport kinetics of wetting layers is presented. The temporal decay of pulsed laser induced spatial thickness modulations in liquid ethanol f~ lms on a silver surface is monitored by means of optically excited surface plarrnons. Our method allows zn distinguish between different equilibration mechanisms. Under the condit~ons In our experiments. t...

Wetting layers in electrolyte solutions

2014 When a predominantly nonpolar mixture is in contact with a chemically ionizable substrate, thick wetting layers of a predominantly polar phase can form on the substrate. This paper considers the effects of added salt on such layers. In the limit of low salt concentrations, the equilibrium thickness reduces to a result previously derived by the author. In the limit of high salt concentratio...

Effect of criticality on wetting layers.

Electric Field Effects on Nematic Wetting Layers

We present a theoretical investigation of the temperature and electric field dependence of nematic liquid crystal wetting layers close to an aligning substrate within a confined system. Using a mesoscopic Q tensor theory coupled to Maxwell’s equations for the electric field, we consider the existence and stability of homogeneous nematic wetting layers close to the substrate. Numerical results a...

What controls the thickness of wetting layers near bulk criticality?

We study the thickness of wetting layers in the binary-liquid mixture cyclohexane methanol. Far from the bulk critical point, the wetting layer thickness is independent of temperature, resulting from the competition between van der Waals and gravitational forces. Upon approaching the bulk critical temperature [t=(T(c)-T)/T(c)-->0], we observe that the wetting layer thickness diverges as t(-beta...