Home | CV | Research | People | Teaching | Blog |
Schmidt | - Browse papers with the paper browser |
21. |
Entropic wetting and the fluid-fluid interface of a
model colloid-polymer mixture J. M. Brader, R. Evans, M. Schmidt, and H. Löwen, J. Phys. Condens. Matter 14, L1 (2002). Locate in [bare] [illustrated] list. Get [full paper] as pdf. Abstract. A recent density functional theory is used to investigate the free interface between demixed fluid phases in a model colloid-polymer mixture. Both the colloid and polymer density profiles oscillate on the colloid-rich side of the interface, provided the polymer reservoir packing fraction eta_p^r is sufficiently high. Results for the surface tension are in reasonable agreement with experiment. When the mixture is adsorbed against a hard wall, entropic depletion effects give rise to a wetting transition whereby the colloid-rich phase wets completely. Prior to complete wetting we find three layering transitions, the first of which extends far into the single-phase region. This pattern of surface phase transitions is very different fromthat observed for simple one-component fluids at planar substrates. [figures] Read the [full paper] as pdf. |