Propagation of Solid-Liquid Interfaces in Disordered Linear Pores

1. Introduction Recent progress in the synthesis of nanoporous materials with controlled structural properties made it possible to address various phenomena occurring in mesoscalic molecular systems. Among them, different aspects of fluid phase transitions could now be related to the structural properties of mesoporous matrices. In particular, porous materials with well-defined pore geometries and pore sizes, such as MCM-41 or SBA-15, have been successively used to verify theoretical predictions about confinement-induced shifts of the transition points [1]. In this work, we take advantage of the option to prepare mesoporous silicon with linear, tailor-made pores [2] and thus to study the dynamics of the freezing process of a fluid under well-defined conditions of confinement. Most importantly, by having macroscopically-long linear, isolated pores, all relevant phenomena can be studied free of network effects, which may enormously complicate the data analysis.