Effect of criticality on wetting layers: A Monte-Carlo simulation study

Abstract

A solid substrate, when exposed to a vapour, can interact with it in such a way that sufficiently close to liquid-vapour coexistence a macroscopically thick liquid wetting layer is formed on the substrate surface. If such a wetting transition occurs for a binary fluid mixture in the vicinity of the critical end point of demixing transitions, critical fluctuations lead to additional long-ranged interactions (Casimir forces) within the wetting layer, changing its equilibrium thickness. We demonstrate this effect by Monte-Carlo simulations of wetting layers of a symmetrical Lennard-Jones binary fluid mixture near its critical end point. The results suggest that the effect should also be detectable in corresponding wetting experiments.

Revtex, 4 figures

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Fluctuation - induced forces in critical fluids
• Wetting of a symmetrical binary fluid mixture on a wall
• Direct calculation of the critical Casimir force in a binary fluid
• Finite-size scaling of the magnetization probability density for the critical Ising model in slab geometry
• Non-additive symmetric mixtures at selective walls