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Wetting transitions and forces in adsorbed films: new phenomena and surprising results

Note: Pizza served at 11:30 AM
Speaker: Raefael Garcia, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
When: March 21, 2008 (Fri), 12:00PM to 01:00PM
Hosted by: Ophelia Tsui

This event is part of the Condensed Matter Seminar Series. All seminars will take place in the Metcalf Science Center, Room 352 at noon, unless otherwise noted

Abstract:
The wetting properties of liquids and soft-matter materials on surfaces are sensitive to minute atomic-scale forces. In this talk, we survey experiments that explore the interplay between phase transitions, dispersion forces, finite-size forces and wetting properties. The specific experiments discussed demonstrate: the existence of fluctuation-induced forces in helium films near the lambda point, fluctuation-induced forces in binary liquid mixture films near room temperature, and a new thick-thin coexistence phenomenon in liquid crystal films near room temperature. In this exciting, experimentally-driven area of research, theory typically lags experiment by 5-8 years. Thus, older experiments are understood in excruciating detail, whereas about most recent experiments we hardly have a clue!