English

Threshold criterion for wetting at the triple point

Statistical Mechanics 2009-10-31 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

Grand canonical simulations are used to calculate adsorption isotherms of various classical gases on alkali metal and Mg surfaces. Ab initio adsorption potentials and Lennard-Jones gas-gas interactions are used. Depending on the system, the resulting behavior can be nonwetting for all temperatures studied, complete wetting, or (in the intermediate case) exhibit a wetting transition. An unusual variety of wetting transitions at the triple point is found in the case of a specific adsorption potential of intermediate strength. The general threshold for wetting near the triple point is found to be close to that predicted with a heuristic model of Cheng et al. This same conclusion was drawn in a recent experimental and simulation study of Ar on CO_2 by Mistura et al. These results imply that a dimensionless wetting parameter w is useful for predicting whether wetting behavior is present at and above the triple temperature. The nonwetting/wetting crossover value found here is w circa 3.3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9906158,
  title  = {Threshold criterion for wetting at the triple point},
  author = {S. Curtarolo and G. Stan and M. J. Bojan and M. W. Cole and W. A. Steele},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9906158},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

15 pages, 8 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T12:12:28.802Z