Pearling instability of nanoscale fluid flow confined to a chemical channel

We investigate the flow of a nano-scale incompressible ridge of low-volatility liquid along a "chemical channel": a long, straight, and completely wetting stripe embedded in a planar substrate, and sandwiched between two extended less wetting solid regions. Molecular dynamics simulations, a simple long-wavelength approximation, and a full stability analysis based on the Stokes equations are used, and give qualitatively consistent results. While thin liquid ridges are stable both statically and during flow, a (linear) pearling instability develops if the thickness of the ridge exceeds half of the width of the channel. In the flowing case periodic bulges propagate along the channel and subsequently merge due to nonlinear effects. However, the ridge does not break up even when the flow is unstable, and the qualitative behavior is unchanged even when the fluid can spill over onto a partially wetting exterior solid region.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Physics of Fluids, fixed equation numbering after Eq. (17

Quasi-Moessbauer effect in two dimensions

Expressions for the absorption spectrum of a nucleus in a three- and a two-dimensional crystal respectively are obtained analytically at zero and at finite temperature respectively. It is found that for finite temperature in two dimensions the Moessbauer effect vanishes but is replaced by what we call a Quasi-Moessbauer effect. Possibilities to identify two-dimensional elastic behavior are discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, notation simplifie

Crossover of Critical Casimir forces between different surface universality classes

In confined systems near a continuous phase transition the long-ranged fluctuations of the corresponding order parameter are subject to boundary conditions. These constraints result in so-called critical Casimir forces acting as effective forces on the confining surfaces. For systems belonging to the Ising bulk universality class corresponding to a scalar order parameter the critical Casimir force is studied for the film geometry in the crossover regime characterized by different surface fields at the two surfaces. The scaling function of the critical Casimir force is calculated within mean field theory. Within our approach, the scaling functions of the critical Casimir force and of the order parameter profile for finite surface fields can be mapped by rescaling, except for a narrow crossover regime, onto the corresponding scaling function of the so-called normal fixed point of strong surface fields. In the crossover regime, the critical Casimir force as function of temperature exhibits more than one extremum and for certain ranges of surface field strengths it changes sign twice upon varying temperature. Monte Carlo simulation data obtained for a three-dimensional Ising film show similar trends. The sign of the critical Casimir force can be inferred from the comparison of the order parameter profiles in the film and in the semi-infinite geometry

Spreading in narrow channels

We study a lattice model for the spreading of fluid films, which are a few molecular layers thick, in narrow channels with inert lateral walls. We focus on systems connected to two particle reservoirs at different chemical potentials, considering an attractive substrate potential at the bottom, confining side walls, and hard-core repulsive fluid-fluid interactions. Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations we find a diffusive behavior. The corresponding diffusion coefficient depends on the density and is bounded from below by the free one-dimensional diffusion coefficient, valid for an inert bottom wall. These numerical results are rationalized within the corresponding continuum limit.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Quasi-linearly polarized hybrid modes in tapered and metal-coated tips with circular apertures: understanding the functionality of aperture tips

In this study, we investigate analytically and experimentally the roles of quasi-linearly polarized (LP), hybrid, plasmonic and photonic modes in optical detection and excitation with aperture tips in scanning near-field optical microscopy. Aperture tips are tapered and metal-coated optical fibers where small circular apertures are made at the apex. In aperture tips, there exist plasmonic modes that are bound at the interface of the metal cladding to the inner dielectric fiber and photonic modes that are guided in the area of the increased index in the dielectric fiber core. The fundamental photonic mode, although excited by the free-space Gaussian beam, experiences cutoff and turns into an evanescent mode. The photonic mode also becomes lossier than the plasmonic mode toward the tip aperture, and its power decay due to absorption and reflection is expected to be at least 10−9. In contrast, the fundamental plasmonic mode has no cutoff and thus reaches all the way to the tip aperture. Due to the non-adiabaticity of both modes' propagations through the taper below a core radius of 600 nm, there occurs coupling between the modes. The transmission efficiency of the plasmonic mode, including the coupling efficiency and the propagation loss, is expected to be about 10−6 that is at least 3 orders of magnitude larger than that of the photonic mode. Toward the tip aperture, the longitudinal field of the photonic mode becomes stronger than the transverse ones while the transverse fields always dominate for the plasmonic mode. Experimentally, we obtain polarization resolved images of the near-field at the tip aperture and compare with the x- and y-components of the fundamental quasi-LP plasmonic and photonic modes. The results show that not only the pattern but also the intensity ratios of the x- and y-components of the aperture near-field match with that of the fundamental plasmonic mode. Consequently, we conclude that only the plasmonic mode reaches the tip aperture and thus governs the near-field interaction outside the tip aperture. Our conclusion remains valid for all aperture tips regardless of the cladding metal type that mainly influences the total transmission efficiency of the aperture tip

Model for Spreading of Liquid Monolayers

Manipulating fluids at the nanoscale within networks of channels or chemical lanes is a crucial challenge in developing small scale devices to be used in microreactors or chemical sensors. In this context, ultra-thin (i.e., monolayer) films, experimentally observed in spreading of nano-droplets or upon extraction from reservoirs in capillary rise geometries, represent an extreme limit which is of physical and technological relevance since the dynamics is governed solely by capillary forces. In this work we use kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations to analyze in detail a simple, but realistic model proposed by Burlatsky \textit{et al.} \cite{Burlatsky_prl96,Oshanin_jml} for the two-dimensional spreading on homogeneous substrates of a fluid monolayer which is extracted from a reservoir. Our simulations confirm the previously predicted time-dependence of the spreading, $X(t \to \infty) = A \sqrt t$, with $X(t)$ as the average position of the advancing edge at time $t$, and they reveal a non-trivial dependence of the prefactor $A$ on the strength $U_0$ of inter-particle attraction and on the fluid density $C_0$ at the reservoir as well as an $U_0$-dependent spatial structure of the density profile of the monolayer. The asymptotic density profile at long time and large spatial scale is carefully analyzed within the continuum limit. We show that including the effect of correlations in an effective manner into the standard mean-field description leads to predictions both for the value of the threshold interaction above which phase segregation occurs and for the density profiles in excellent agreement with KMC simulations results.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.