Alexandr Malijevský

A perspective on the interfacial properties of nanoscopic liquid drops

The structural and interfacial properties of nanoscopic liquid drops are assessed by means of mechanical, thermodynamical, and statistical mechanical approaches that are discussed in detail, including original developments at both the macroscopic level and the microscopic level of density functional theory (DFT). With a novel analysis we show that a purely macroscopic (static) mechanical treatment can lead to a qualitatively reasonable description of the surface tension and the Tolman length of a liquid drop; the latter parameter, which characterizes the curvature dependence of the tension, is found to be negative and has a magnitude of about a half of the molecular dimension. A mechanical slant cannot, however, be considered satisfactory for small finite-size systems where fluctuation effects are significant. From the opposite perspective, a curvature expansion of the macroscopic thermodynamic properties (density and chemical potential) is then used to demonstrate that a purely thermodynamic approach of this type cannot in itself correctly account for the curvature correction of the surface tension of liquid drops. We emphasize that any approach, e.g., classical nucleation theory, which is based on a purely macroscopic viewpoint, does not lead to a reliable representation when the radius of the drop becomes microscopic. The description of the enhanced inhomogeneity exhibited by small drops (particularly in the dense interior) necessitates a treatment at the molecular level to account for finite-size and surface effects correctly. The so-called mechanical route, which corresponds to a molecular-level extension of the macroscopic theory of elasticity and is particularly popular in molecular dynamics simulation, also appears to be unreliable due to the inherent ambiguity in the definition of the microscopic pressure tensor, an observation which has been known for decades but is frequently ignored. The union of the theory of capillarity (developed in the nineteenth century by Gibbs and then promoted by Tolman) with a microscopic DFT treatment allows for a direct and unambiguous description of the interfacial properties of drops of arbitrary size; DFT provides all of the bulk and surface characteristics of the system that are required to uniquely define its thermodynamic properties. In this vein, we propose a non-local mean-field DFT for Lennard-Jones (LJ) fluids to examine drops of varying size. A comparison of the predictions of our DFT with recent simulation data based on a second-order fluctuation analysis (Sampayo et al 2010 J. Chem. Phys. 132 141101) reveals the consistency of the two treatments. This observation highlights the significance of fluctuation effects in small drops, which give rise to additional entropic (thermal non-mechanical) contributions, in contrast to what one observes in the case of planar interfaces which are governed by the laws of mechanical equilibrium. A small negative Tolman length (which is found to be about a tenth of the molecular diameter) and a non-monotonic behaviour of the surface tension with the drop radius are predicted for the LJ fluid. Finally, the limits of the validity of the Tolman approach, the effect of the range of the intermolecular potential, and the behaviour of bubbles are briefly discussed.

How "sticky" are short-range square-well fluids?

The aim of this work is to investigate to what extent the structural properties of a short-range square-well (SW) fluid of range lambda at a given packing fraction eta and reduced temperature T* = kBT/epsilon can be represented by those of a sticky-hard-sphere (SHS) fluid at the same packing fraction and an effective stickiness parameter tau(T*,lambda). Such an equivalence cannot hold for the radial distribution function g(r) since this function has a delta singularity at contact (r = sigma) in the SHS case, while it has a jump discontinuity at r = lambda sigma in the SW case. Therefore, the equivalence is explored with the cavity function y(r), i.e., we assume that [formula: see text]. Optimization of the agreement between y(SW) and y(SHS) to first order in density suggests the choice tau(T*,lambda) = [12(e(1/T* - 1)(lambda - 1)](-1). We have performed Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the SW fluid for lambda = 1.05, 1.02, and 1.01 at several densities and temperatures T* such that tau(T*,lambda) = 0.13, 0.2, and 0.5. The resulting cavity functions have been compared with MC data of SHS fluids obtained by Miller and Frenkel[J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16, S4901 (2004)]. Although, at given values of eta and tau, some local discrepancies between y(SW) and y(SHS) exist (especially for lambda = 1.05), the SW data converge smoothly toward the SHS values as lambda-1 decreases. In fact, precursors of the singularities of y(SHS) at certain distances due to geometrical arrangements are clearly observed in y(SW). The approximate mapping y(SW)-->y(SHS) is exploited to estimate the internal energy and structure factor of the SW fluid from those of the SHS fluid. Taking for y(SHS) the solution of the Percus-Yevick equation as well as the rational-function approximation, the radial distribution function g(r) of the SW fluid is theoretically estimated and a good agreement with our MC simulations is found. Finally, a similar study is carried out for short-range SW fluid mixtures.

Does surface roughness amplify wetting

Any solid surface is intrinsically rough on the microscopic scale. In this paper, we study the effect of this roughness on the wetting properties of hydrophilic substrates. Macroscopic arguments, such as those leading to the well-known Wenzels law, predict that surface roughness should amplify the wetting properties of such adsorbents. We use a fundamental measure density functional theory to demonstrate the opposite effect from roughness for microscopically corrugated surfaces, i.e., wetting is hindered. Based on three independent analyses we show that microscopic surface corrugation increases the wetting temperature or even makes the surface hydrophobic. Since for macroscopically corrugated surfaces the solid texture does indeed amplify wetting there must exist a crossover between two length-scale regimes that are distinguished by opposite response on surface roughening. This demonstrates how deceptive can be efforts to extend the thermodynamical laws beyond their macroscopic territory.

Critical point wedge filling.

We present results of a microscopic density functional theory study of wedge filling transitions, at a right-angle wedge, in the presence of dispersionlike wall-fluid forces. Far from the corner the walls of the wedge show a first-order wetting transition at a temperature T(w) which is progressively closer to the bulk critical temperature T(c) as the strength of the wall forces is reduced. In addition, the meniscus formed near the corner undergoes a filling transition at a temperature T(f)<T(w), the value of which is found to be in excellent agreement with macroscopic predictions. We show that the filling transition is first order if it occurs far from the critical point but is continuous if T(f) is close to T(c) even though the walls still show first-order wetting behavior. For this continuous transition the distance of the meniscus from the apex grows as ℓ(w)≈(T(f)-T)(-β(w)) with the critical exponent β(w)≈0.46±0.05 in good agreement with the phenomenological effective Hamiltonian prediction. Our results suggest that critical filling transitions, with accompanying large scale universal interfacial fluctuation effects, are more generic than thought previously, and are experimentally accessible.

Low-temperature and high-temperature approximations for penetrable-sphere fluids : Comparison with Monte Carlo simulations and integral equation theories

The two-body interaction in dilute solutions of polymer chains in good solvents can be modeled by means of effective bounded potentials, the simplest of which being that of penetrable spheres (PSs). In this paper we construct two simple analytical theories for the structural properties of PS fluids: a low-temperature (LT) approximation, that can be seen as an extension to PSs of the well-known solution of the Percus-Yevick (PY) equation for hard spheres, and a high-temperature (HT) approximation based on the exact asymptotic behavior in the limit of infinite temperature. Monte Carlo simulations for a wide range of temperatures and densities are performed to assess the validity of both theories. It is found that, despite their simplicity, the HT and LT approximations exhibit a fair agreement with the simulation data within their respective domains of applicability, so that they complement each other. A comparison with numerical solutions of the PY and the hypernetted-chain approximations is also carried out, the latter showing a very good performance, except inside the core at low temperatures.

Many-fluid Onsager density functional theories for orientational ordering in mixtures of anisotropic hard-body fluids

The extension of Onsagers second-virial theory [L. Onsager, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 51, 627 (1949)] for the orientational ordering of hard rods to mixtures of nonspherical hard bodies with finite length-to-breadth ratios is examined using the decoupling approximations of Parsons [Phys. Rev. A 19, 1225 (1979)] and Lee [J. Chem. Phys. 86, 6567 (1987); 89, 7036 (1988)]. Invariably the extension of the Parsons-Lee (PL) theory to mixtures has in the past involved a van der Waals one-fluid treatment in which the properties of the mixture are approximated by those of a reference one-component hard-sphere fluid with an effective diameter which depends on the composition of the mixture and the molecular parameters of the various components; commonly this is achieved by equating the molecular volumes of the effective hard sphere and of the components in the mixture and is referred to as the PL theory of mixtures. It is well known that a one-fluid treatment is not the most appropriate for the description of the thermodynamic properties of isotropic fluids, and inadequacies are often rectified with a many-fluid (MF) theory. Here, we examine MF theories which are developed from the virial theorem and the virial expansion of the Helmholtz free energy of anisotropic fluid mixtures. The use of the decoupling approximation of the pair distribution function at the level of a multicomponent hard-sphere reference system leads to our MF Parsons (MFP) theory of anisotropic mixtures. Alternatively the mapping of the virial coefficients of the hard-body mixtures onto those of equivalent hard-sphere systems leads to our MF Lee (MFL) theory. The description of the isotropic-nematic phase behavior of binary mixtures of hard Gaussian overlap particles is used to assess the adequacy of the four different theories, namely, the original second-virial theory of Onsager, the usual PL one-fluid theory, and the MF theories based on the Lee (MFL) and Parsons (MFP) approaches. A comparison with the simulation data for the mixtures studied by Zhou et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 120, 1832 (2004)] suggests that the Parsons MF description (MFP) provides the most accurate representation of the properties of the isotropic-nematic ordering transition and density (pressure) dependence of the order parameters.

Structure of penetrable-rod fluids: Exact properties and comparison between Monte Carlo simulations and two analytic theories

Bounded potentials are good models to represent the effective two-body interaction in some colloidal systems, such as the dilute solutions of polymer chains in good solvents. The simplest bounded potential is that of penetrable spheres, which takes a positive finite value if the two spheres are overlapped, being 0 otherwise. Even in the one-dimensional case, the penetrable-rod model is far from trivial, since interactions are not restricted to nearest neighbors and so its exact solution is not known. In this paper the structural properties of one-dimensional penetrable rods are studied. We first derive the exact correlation functions of the penetrable-rod fluids to second order in density at any temperature, as well as in the high-temperature and zero-temperature limits at any density. It is seen that, in contrast to what is generally believed, the Percus-Yevick equation does not yield the exact cavity function in the hard-rod limit. Next, two simple analytic theories are constructed: a high-temperature approximation based on the exact asymptotic behavior in the limit T--> infinity and a low-temperature approximation inspired by the exact result in the opposite limit T--> 0. Finally, we perform Monte Carlo simulations for a wide range of temperatures and densities to assess the validity of both theories. It is found that they complement each other quite well, exhibiting a good agreement with the simulation data within their respective domains of applicability and becoming practically equivalent on the borderline of those domains. A comparison with numerical solutions of the Percus-Yevick and the hypernetted-chain approximations is also carried out. Finally, a perspective on the extension of our two heuristic theories to the more realistic three-dimensional case is provided.

Monte Carlo simulations of thermodynamic properties of argon, krypton and xenon in liquid and gas state using new ab initio pair potentials

The internal energies and compressibility factors of argon, krypton and xenon have been simulated using recent state-of-the-art ab initio pair intermolecular potentials and the best semi-empirical pair potentials, and the Axilrod-Teller-Muto three-body term. The results are compared with experimental data for both sub-critical and super-critical temperatures and for densities ranging up to a 2.5 multiple of the critical density. Both the ab initio and semi-empirical results for argon are in very good agreement with the experimental ones. For krypton and xenon, the ab initio results are worse than the semi-empirical results but they are still acceptable.

Does adsorption in a single nanogroove exhibit hysteresis

A simple fluid, in a microscopic capillary capped at one end, is studied by means of fundamental measure density functional. The model represents a single, infinitely long nanogroove with long-range wall-fluid attractive (dispersion) forces. It is shown that the presence or absence of hysteresis in adsorption isotherms is determined by wetting properties of the wall as follows: Above wetting temperature, T(w), appropriate to a single wall of the groove, the adsorption is a continuous process corresponding to a rise of a meniscus from the capped to the open end of the groove. For a sufficiently deep capillary, the meniscus rise is shown to be a steep, yet continuous process taking place near the capillary condensation of a corresponding slit. However, for temperatures lower than T(w) the condensation exhibits a first-order transition accompanied by hysteresis of the adsorption isotherm. Finally, it is shown that hysteresis may occur even for T > T(w) as a consequence of prewetting on the side and bottom walls of the groove.

Penetrable-square-well fluids: Analytical study and Monte Carlo simulations

We study structural and thermophysical properties of a one-dimensional classical fluid made of penetrable spheres interacting via an attractive square-well potential. Penetrability of the spheres is enforced by reducing from infinite to finite the repulsive energy barrier in the pair potentials As a consequence, an exact analytical solution is lacking even in one dimension. Building upon previous exact analytical work in the low-density limit [A. Santos, R. Fantoni, and A. Giacometti, Phys. Rev. E 77, 051206 (2008)], we propose an approximate theory valid at any density and in the low-penetrable regime. By comparison with specialized Monte Carlo simulations and integral equation theories, we assess the regime of validity of the theory. We investigate the degree of inconsistency among the various routes to thermodynamics and explore the possibility of a fluid-fluid transition. Finally we locate the dependence of the Fisher-Widom line on the degree of penetrability. Our results constitute the first systematic study of penetrable spheres with attractions as a prototype model for soft systems.