In an assembly of atoms or molecules a solid phase is formed whenever the interatomic (intermolecular) attractive forces significantly exceed the disruptive thermal forces and thus restrict the mobility of atoms, forcing them into more-or-less fixed positions. From energy considerations it is evident (as discussed in LN-2) that in such solids the atoms or molecules will always attempt to assume...

Dynamic atomic force microscopy, in essence, consists of a vibrating microcantilever with a nanoscale tip that interacts with a sample surface via shortand long-range intermolecular forces. Microcantilevers possess several distinct eigenmodes and the tip-sample interaction forces are highly nonlinear. As a consequence, cantilevers vibrate in interesting, often unanticipated ways; some are detri...

We study the role of the attractive intermolecular forces in the viscous regime of a simple glass-forming liquid by using computer simulations. To this end, we compare the structure and the dynamics of a standard Lennard-Jones glass-forming liquid model with and without the attractive tail of the interaction potentials. The viscous slowing down of the two systems is found to be quantitatively a...

The recent development of tunable far-infrared lasers and other high-resolution spectroscopic probes of weakly bound clusters is having a significant impact on our understanding of intermolecular forces and on the complex quantum tunneling dynamics that occur in hydrogen-bonded systems. Far-infrared studies of a variety of interactions are discussed, including several prototypical water-hydroph...

We study continuous interfacial transitions, analagous to two-dimensional complete wetting, associated with the first-order prewetting line, which can occur on steps, patterned walls, grooves and wedges, and which are sensitive to both the range of the intermolecular forces and interfacial fluctuation effects. These transitions compete with wetting, filling and condensation producing very rich ...