English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The surface freezing and surface melting transitions exhibited by a modeltwo-dimensional soft matter system is studied. The behaviour when confinedwithin a wedge is also considered. The system consists of particles interactingvia a soft purely repulsive pair potential. Density functional theory (DFT) isused to calculate density profiles and thermodynamic quantities. The externalpotential due to the confining walls is modelled via a hard-wall with anadditional repulsive Yukawa potential. The surface phase behaviour depends onthe range and strength of this repulsion: When the repulsion strength is weak,the wall promotes freezing at the surface of the wall. The thickness of thisfrozen layer grows logarithmically as the bulk liquid-solid phase coexistenceis approached. Our mean-field DFT predicts that this crystalline layer at thewall must be nucleated (i.e. there is a free energy barrier) and its formationis necessarily a first-order transition, referred to as `prefreezing', byanalogy with the prewetting transition. However, in contrast to the latter,prefreezing cannot terminate in a critical point, since the phase transitioninvolves a change in symmetry. If the wall-fluid interaction is sufficientlylong ranged and the repulsion is strong enough, surface melting can insteadoccur. Then the interface between the wall and the bulk crystalline solidbecomes wet by the liquid phase as the chemical potential is decreased towardsthe value at liquid-solid coexistence. It is observed that the finite thicknessfluid film at the wall has a broken translational symmetry due to its proximityto the bulk crystal and so the nucleation of the wetting film can be eitherfirst-order or continuous. Our mean-field theory predicts that for certain wallpotentials there is a premelting critical point analogous to the surfacecritical point for the prewetting transition. In a wedge...

Crystallisation of soft matter under confinement at interfaces and in wedges