The asymptotic behavior of an elastic thin film penalized by a van der Wals type interfacial energy is investigated when both its thickness and the magnitude of the additional energy vanish in the limit. Keeping track of both mid-plane and out of plane deformations (through the introduction of the Cosserat vector), the resulting behavior strongly depends upon the ratio between thickness and int...

We report on further results for the problem studied in [1], concerning stable equilibria for a two-phase model of an elastic solid in anti-plane shear in the presence of small interfacial energy. The existence and computation of global solution branches of equilibria for arbitrarily small interfacial energy is presented in [1], and the computational stability (local energy minimization) is use...

Efficient charge generation via exciton dissociation in organic bulk heterojunctions necessitates donor-acceptor interfaces, e.g., between a conjugated polymer and a fullerene derivative. Furthermore, aggregation and corresponding structural order of polymer and fullerene domains result in energetic relaxations of molecular energy levels toward smaller energy gaps as compared to the situation f...

Solid-liquid interfaces play a fundamental role in surface electrochemistry, catalysis, wetting, self-assembly and biomolecular functions. The interfacial energy determines many of the properties of such interfaces, including the arrangement of the liquid molecules at the surface of the solid. Diffraction techniques are often used to investigate the structure of solid-liquid interfaces, but mea...

We have calculated the interfacial free energy for the hard-sphere system, as a function of crystal interface orientation, using a method that examines the fluctuations in the height of the interface during molecular dynamics simulations. The approach is particularly sensitive for the anisotropy of the interfacial free energy. We find an average interfacial free energy of gamma=0.56+/-0.02k(B)T...

Studies of the partitioning of hydrophobic solutes between water and nonpolar solvents provide estimates for the energy cost of creating hydrophobic-water contacts. This energy is a factor of three lower than the work of adhesion derived from interfacial tension measurements. This discrepancy noted by Tanford in 1979 is widely viewed as a serious challenge to our understanding of hydrophobic in...

The energy release rate for propagation of a debond in a single-fiber pull out test was derived analytically. The key finding was that an accurate analysis can be derived by a global energy analysis that includes effects of residual stresses and interfacial friction but does not need to include the details of the stress state at the interfacial crack tip. By comparison to finite elements analys...

A phase-field approach for phase transformations (PTs) between three different phases at nonequilibrium temperatures is developed. It includes advanced mechanics, thermodynamically consistent interfacial stresses, and interface interactions. A thermodynamic Landau-Ginzburg potential developed in terms of polar order parameters satisfies the desired instability and equilibrium conditions for hom...

The surface polarization of Ga-face gallium nitride (GaN) (2 nm)/AlGaN (22 nm)/GaN channel (150 nm)/buffer/Si with Al2O3 capping layer is investigated by angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ARXPS). It is found that the energy band varies from upward bending to downward bending in the interface region, which is believed to be corresponding to the polarization variation. An interfaci...

We study interfacial behavior of a lamellar (stripe) phase coexisting with a disordered phase. Systematic analytical expansions are obtained for the interfacial profile in the vicinity of a tricritical point. They are characterized by a wide interfacial region involving a large number of lamellae. Our analytical results apply to systems with one dimensional symmetry in true thermodynamical equi...