0000000000512470
AUTHOR
M. L. Trobo
Heterogeneous nucleation of a droplet pinned at a chemically inhomogeneous substrate: A simulation study of the two-dimensional Ising case
Heterogeneous nucleation is studied by Monte Carlo simulations and phenomenological theory, using the two-dimensional lattice gas model with suitable boundary fields. A chemical inhomogeneity of length b at one boundary favors the liquid phase, while elsewhere the vapor is favored. Switching on the bulk field Hb favoring the liquid, nucleation and growth of the liquid phase starting from the region of the chemical inhomogeneity are analyzed. Three regimes occur: for small fields, Hb bcrit, the critical droplet radius is so large that a critical droplet having the contact angle θc required by Young's equation in the region of the chemical inhomogeneity does not yet "fit" there since the base…
Droplets pinned at chemically inhomogenous substrates: A simulation study of the two-dimensional Ising case
As a simplified model of a liquid nanostripe adsorbed on a chemically structured substrate surface, a two-dimensional Ising system with two boundaries at which surface fields act is studied. At the upper boundary, the surface field is uniformly negative, while at the lower boundary (a distance L apart), the surface field is negative only outside a range of extension b, where a positive surface stabilizes a droplet of the phase with positive magnetization for temperatures T exceeding the critical temperature Tw of the wetting transition of this model. We investigate the local order parameter profiles across the droplet, both in the directions parallel and perpendicular to the substrate, vary…
Numerical evidence of hyperscaling violation in wetting transitions of the random-bond Ising model in d = 2 dimensions
We performed extensive simulations of the random-bond Ising model confined between walls where competitive surface fields act. By properly taking the thermodynamic limit we unambiguously determined wetting transition points of the system, as extrapolation of localization-delocalization transitions of the interface between domains of different orientation driven by the respective fields. The finite-size scaling theory for wetting with short-range fields establishes that the average magnetization of the sample, with critical exponent β, is the proper order parameter for the study of wetting. While the hyperscaling relationship given by γ+2β=ν +ν requires β=1/2 (γ=4, ν =3, and ν =2), the therm…
First-order and tricritical wetting transitions in the two-dimensional Ising model caused by interfacial pinning at a defect line
We present a study of the critical behavior of the Blume-Capel model with three spin states (S=±1,0) confined between parallel walls separated by a distance L where competitive surface magnetic fields act. By properly choosing the crystal field (D), which regulates the density of nonmagnetic species (S=0), such that those impurities are excluded from the bulk (where D=) except in the middle of the sample [where DM(L/2)≠], we are able to control the presence of a defect line in the middle of the sample and study its influence on the interface between domains of different spin orientations. So essentially we study an Ising model with a defect line but, unlike previous work where defect lines …