Filling transitions in acute and open wedges

Abstract

We present numerical studies of first-order and continuous filling transitions, in wedges of arbitrary opening angle $\psi$, using a microscopic fundamental measure density functional model with short-ranged fluid-fluid forces and long-ranged wall-fluid forces. In this system the wetting transition characteristic of the planar wall-fluid interface is always first-order regardless of the strength of the wall-fluid potential ${\epsilon }_w$. In the wedge geometry however the order of the filling transition depends not only on ${\epsilon }_w$ but also the opening angle $\psi$. In particular we show that even if the wetting transition is strongly first-order the filling transition is continuous for sufficient acute wedges. We show further that the change in the order of the transition occurs via a tricritical point as opposed to a critical-end point. These results extend previous effective Hamiltonian predictions which were limited only to shallow wedges.

References in corpus (4)

• Critical Point Wedge Filling
• Phase separation in a wedge. Exact results
• Capillary Contact Angle in a Completely Wet Groove
• Condensation and evaporation transitions in deep capillary grooves

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• Three types of condensation in open wedges