The dynamics of droplet spreading on two-dimensional wicking surfaces were studied using square arrays of Si nanopillars. It was observed that the wicking film always precedes the droplet edge during the spreading process causing the droplet to effectively spread on a Cassie-Baxter surface composed …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062406] Published Mon Dec 23, 2013

Adsorption thermodynamics of interacting particles adsorbed on icosahedral and truncated octahedral nanoparticles was studied by a detailed mean-field approximation and Monte Carlo simulations. The nanoparticle is tackled as a multivariate surface, where different types of adsorption sites occur acc…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062407] Published Mon Dec 23, 2013

The Mullins-Sekerka and the electric breakdown instabilities are well known to lead to the spontaneous formation of a variety of complex spatial structures, among them dendritic crystal shapes, and treelike electric discharge patterns. Controlling such systems by suppressing predominantly excited so…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062404] Published Thu Dec 19, 2013

Sliding at interface during thin film buckling was reported by recent atomistic simulations. A stability analysis under the Föppl–von Kármán plate theory is performed to investigate the effect of interface sliding on the transition of a straight-sided blister to the telephone cord buckle in biaxiall…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062405] Published Thu Dec 19, 2013

Interfacial flows close to a moving contact line are inherently multiscale. The shape of the interface and the flow at meso- and macroscopic scales inherit an apparent interface slope and a regularization length, both named after Voinov, from the microscopic inner region. Here, we solve the inner pr…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 060404(R)] Published Thu Dec 12, 2013

Using experiments with single-particle resolution and computer simulations we study the collective behavior of multiple vacancies injected into two-dimensional crystals. We find that the defects assemble into linear strings, terminated by dislocations with antiparallel Burgers vectors. We show that …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 060402(R)] Published Tue Dec 10, 2013

The strength and stability of frictional interfaces, ranging from tribological systems to earthquake faults, are intimately related to the underlying spatially extended dynamics. Here we provide a comprehensive theoretical account, both analytic and numeric, of spatiotemporal interfacial dynamics in…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 060403(R)] Published Tue Dec 10, 2013

We perform large-scale simulations of a two-dimensional lattice model for amorphous plasticity with random local yield stresses and long-range quadrupolar elastic interactions. We show that as the external stress increases towards the yielding phase transition, the scaling behavior of the avalanches…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062403] Published Tue Dec 10, 2013

A phase-field model of a crack front propagating in a three-dimensional brittle material is used to study the fractographic patterns induced by the branching instability. The numerical results of this model give rise to crack surfaces that are similar to those obtained in various experimental situat…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 060401(R)] Published Fri Dec 06, 2013

The effects of the initial height on the temporal persistence probability of steady-state height fluctuations in up-down symmetric linear models of surface growth are investigated. We study the (1+1)-dimensional Family model and the (1+1)- and (2+1)-dimensional larger curvature (LC) model. Both the …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062402] Published Tue Dec 03, 2013

A fundamental problem in the physics of amorphous materials is understanding the transition from reversible to irreversible plastic behavior and its connection to yield. Currently, continuum material modeling relies on phenomenological yield thresholds, however in many cases the transition from elas…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 062401] Published Mon Dec 02, 2013

We present an alternative finite-size approach to a set of parity-conserving interfaces involving attachment, dissociation, and detachment of extended objects in 1+1 dimensions. With the aid of a nonlocal construct introduced by Barma and Dhar in related systems [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2135 (1994)], w…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052408] Published Wed Nov 27, 2013

In the present article, we introduce a phase-field model for thin-film growth with anisotropic step energy, attachment kinetics, and diffusion, with second-order (thin-interface) corrections. We are mainly interested in the limit in which kinetic anisotropy dominates, and hence we study how the expe…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052409] Published Wed Nov 27, 2013

Wetting transitions are studied in the two-dimensional Ising ferromagnet confined between walls where competitive surface fields act. In our finite samples of size $L\times M$, the walls are separated by a distance $L$, $M$ being the length of the sample. The surface fields are taken to be short-range and nonun…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052407] Published Fri Nov 15, 2013

Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of confined model liquids under pressure and sheared by the relative sliding of the boundary walls have been carried out. The relationship between the time-dependent traction coefficient, $\mu \left(t\right)$, and the state of internal structure of the film is followed …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052406] Published Wed Nov 13, 2013

We investigate the interfacial instability of the steady uniform flow of a fluid-film layer down a permeable incline. A theoretical model is obtained by coupling the clear fluid flow equations governing the fluid film with Darcy's law for the filtration of fluid through the porous medium. A linear s…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052405] Published Tue Nov 12, 2013

We study the stability and roughness of propagating cracks in heterogeneous brittle two-dimensional elastic materials. We begin by deriving an equation of motion describing the dynamics of such a crack in the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics, based on the Griffith criterion and the pri…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052402] Published Mon Nov 11, 2013

We study the interaction between a nanoparticle and the surface of a solid in the framework of the local-field method. Assuming that the nanoparticle is characterized by a finite nonlinear polarizability, we obtain the interaction potential that is repulsive at short range and has an attractive long…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052403] Published Mon Nov 11, 2013

We study elasticity-driven morphological transitions of soft spherical core-shell structures in which the core can be treated as an isotropic elastic continuum and the surface or shell as a tensionless liquid layer, whose elastic response is dominated by bending. To generate the transitions, we cons…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052404] Published Mon Nov 11, 2013

Frictional properties of contacts between a smooth viscoelastic rubber and rigid surfaces are investigated using a torsional contact configuration where a glass lens is continuously rotated on the rubber surface. From the inversion of the displacement field measured at the surface of the rubber, spa…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 052401] Published Thu Nov 07, 2013

We study the irreversible growth of magnetic thin films under the influence of spatially periodic fields by means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We find first-order pseudo-phase-transitions that separate a dynamically disordered phase from a dynamically ordered phase. By analogy with time-dep…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042412] Published Thu Oct 31, 2013

A liquid droplet resting on a soft gel substrate can deform that substrate to the point of material failure, whereby fractures develop on the gel surface that propagate outwards from the contact line in a starburst pattern. In this paper, we characterize (i) the initiation process, in which the numb…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042410] Published Mon Oct 28, 2013

We study the effect of the sample thickness in planar crack front propagation in a disordered elastic medium using the random fuse model. We employ different loading conditions and we test their stability with respect to crack growth. We show that the thickness induces characteristic lengths in the …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042411] Published Mon Oct 28, 2013

Breakage is generally understood in mechanical terms, yet nanostructures can rupture not only under external loads but also via thermal activation. Here we treat in a general framework the statistical mechanics of thermally induced breakage at the nanoscale for one-dimensional systems. We test it on…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042409] Published Fri Oct 25, 2013

We derive coefficients of the electrokinetic coupling matrix (${\chi }_{11}$, ${\chi }_{12}$, and ${\chi }_{21}$) for the flow of an ionic solution through a parallel-plate geometry having porous and charged layers grafted onto a solid surface with a known potential and demonstrate Onsager reciprocity for the cross terms (i.e., ${\chi }_{12}\dots$

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042408] Published Mon Oct 21, 2013

A boundary condition for the Boltzmann equation (kinetic boundary condition, KBC) at the vapor-liquid interface of argon is constructed with the help of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The KBC is examined at a constant liquid temperature of 85 K in a wide range of nonequilibrium states of vapor…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042406] Published Tue Oct 15, 2013

We perform phase-field simulations of unsteady crystal growth in a three-dimensional capillary. Motivated by the appearance of chirality-symmetry breaking periodic states in our preceding study, we here focus on more general dynamic states. Most of these are obtained in the limit of isotropic surfac…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042407] Published Tue Oct 15, 2013

We couple the recently developed self-learning metabasin escape algorithm, which enables efficient exploration of the potential energy surface (PES), with shear deformation to elucidate strain-rate and temperature effects on the shear transformation zone (STZ) characteristics in two-dimensional amor…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042404] Published Thu Oct 10, 2013

When thin films are grown on a substrate by chemical vapor deposition, the evolution of the first deposited layers may be described, on mesoscopic scales, by dynamical models of the reaction-diffusion type. For monatomic layers, such models describe the evolution of atomic coverage due to the combin…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042405] Published Thu Oct 10, 2013

Various dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom display avalanche dynamics, which is characterized by scale invariance reflected in power-law statistics. The superposition of avalanche processes in real systems driven at a finite velocity may influence the experimental determination of the un…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042402] Published Wed Oct 09, 2013

Creasing and wrinkling are different types of instabilities on material surfaces characterized by localized singular folds and continuously smooth undulation, respectively. While it is known that electric fields can induce both types of instabilities in elastomer films bonded on substrates, the rela…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042403] Published Wed Oct 09, 2013

We report on the spontaneous formation of hierarchical wrinkling patterns in Cr films deposited on silicone oil drops with constrained edges. The appearance of the wrinkling patterns is strongly dependent on the film thickness and the size of the silicone oil drop. Because the Cr film at the drop ed…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 042401] Published Tue Oct 08, 2013

Wrinkling and folding are examined experimentally for three distinct types of disordered films on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates; diblock copolymers, glassy polymers, and single-wall carbon nanotubes. All three of these systems exhibit localization and length-scale doubling at small strains,…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032409] Published Mon Sep 30, 2013

An isotropic magnetoelastic phase-field-crystal model to study the relation between morphological structure and magnetic properties of pure ferromagnetic solids is introduced. Analytic calculations in two dimensions were used to determine the phase diagram and obtain the relationship between elastic…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032407] Published Mon Sep 23, 2013

Using acoustic resonators, we have studied the occurrence and the magnitude of partial slip between glass spheres and polymer surfaces. The measurement relies on the shifts of resonance frequency and bandwidth, Δ$f$ and ΔΓ, induced by the contact as well as the dependence of Δ$f$ and ΔΓ on the amplitude…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032408] Published Mon Sep 23, 2013

Dilute electrolytic cells filled with chlorobenzene containing small amounts of tetrabutylammonium tetraphenylborate show anomalous dielectric dispersions in low-frequency regions. We propose a new model for electrode polarization in order to analyze the dielectric behavior of the dilute electrolyti…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032406] Published Wed Sep 18, 2013

We examine the fracture mechanics of tearing graphene. We present a molecular dynamics simulation of the propagation of cracks in clamped, free-standing graphene as a function of the out-of-plane force. The geometry is motivated by experimental configurations that expose graphene sheets to out-of-pl…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032405] Published Thu Sep 12, 2013

We study the continuum limit of a family of kinetic Monte Carlo models of crystal surface relaxation that includes both the solid-on-solid and discrete Gaussian models. With computational experiments and theoretical arguments we are able to derive several partial differential equation limits identif…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032403] Published Mon Sep 09, 2013

We study the pore-scale dynamics of salt precipitation in three-dimensional drying porous media, utilizing high resolution x-ray microtomography and scanning electron microscopy. Our results illustrate that the salt precipitation patterns in drying porous media are nonuniform, manifesting the influe…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032404] Published Mon Sep 09, 2013

Critical wetting transition for short-range forces in three dimensions ($d=3$) is reinvestigated by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Using an anisotropic finite size scaling approach, as well as approaches that do not rely on finite size scaling, we show that the critical wetting transition shows clea…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 030401(R)] Published Thu Sep 05, 2013

We study stress relaxation in hand folded aluminum foils subjected to the uniaxial compression force $F\left(\lambda \right)$. We found that once the compression ratio is fixed ($\lambda =\mathrm{const}$) the compression force decreases in time as $F\propto F_{0}P\left(t\right)$, where $P\left(t\right)$ is the survival probability time distribution belonging to the domain…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032402] Published Thu Sep 05, 2013

In this paper we extend the recent theory of shear localization in two-dimensional (2D) amorphous solids to three dimensions. In two dimensions the fundamental instability of shear localization is related to the appearance of a line of displacement quadrupoles that makes an angle of 45${}^{\circ }$ with the pri…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 032401] Published Wed Sep 04, 2013

Solid-liquid interfaces are central to nanoscale science and technology and control processes as diverse as self-assembly, heterogeneous catalysis, wetting, electrochemistry, or protein function. Experimentally, measuring the structure and dynamics of solid-liquid interfaces with molecular resolutio…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022407] Published Wed Aug 28, 2013

We present a unified description of interface kinetic effects in phase-field models for isothermal transformations in binary alloys and steps dynamics in molecular-beam-epitaxy. The phase-field equations of motion incorporate a kinetic cross-coupling between the phase field and the concentration fie…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022406] Published Mon Aug 26, 2013

We reexamine previous observations of folding kinetics of compressed lipid monolayers in light of the accepted mechanical buckling mechanism recently proposed by L. Pocivavsek et al. [Science 320, 912 (2008)]. Using simple models, we set conservative limits on (a) the energy released in the mechanic…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022405] Published Wed Aug 21, 2013

The evolution of small disturbances to a horizontal interface separating two miscible liquids is examined. The aim is to investigate how the interfacial mass transfer affects development of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability and propagation and damping of the gravity-capillary waves. The phase-field ap…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022404] Published Mon Aug 19, 2013

We consider grain growth and stagnation in polycrystalline microstructures. From the phase-field crystal modeling of the coarsening dynamics, we identify a transition from a grain-growth stagnation upon deep quenching below the melting temperature $T_m$ to a continuous coarsening at shallower quenching…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 020401(R)] Published Thu Aug 15, 2013

We used a configuration-based kinetic Monte Carlo model to explain important features related to formation of the ($\sqrt{3}$$\times$$\sqrt{3}$)$R30$${}^{\circ }$ mosaic of metal and semiconductor atoms on the Si(111) surface. Using first-order desorption processes, we simulate the surprising zero-order desorption spectra, reported in so…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022403] Published Wed Aug 14, 2013

A continuum model for the dynamics of a single step with the strongly anisotropic line energy is formulated and analyzed. The step grows by attachment of adatoms from the lower terrace, onto which atoms adsorb from a vapor phase or from a molecular beam, and the desorption is nonnegligible (the “one…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022402] Published Tue Aug 13, 2013

We study mode-I fracture in lattices using atomistic simulations with randomly distributed bond lengths. By using a small parameter that measures the variation of the bond length between the atoms in perfect lattices and using a three-body force law, simulations reproduce the qualitative behavior of…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 022401] Published Mon Aug 12, 2013

The dynamic equilibrium model suggests that surface nanobubbles can be stable due to an influx of gas in the vicinity of the bubble contact line, driven by substrate hydrophobicity, that balances the outflux of gas from the bubble apex. Here, we develop an alternate formulation of this mechanism tha…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 010402(R)] Published Tue Jul 30, 2013

We investigate the structure of crystalline particle arrays on constant mean curvature (CMC) surfaces of revolution. Such curved crystals have been realized physically by creating charge-stabilized colloidal arrays on liquid capillary bridges. CMC surfaces of revolution, classified by Delaunay in 18…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 012405] Published Mon Jul 29, 2013

Nanodroplets sitting on substrates in an open system are usually assumed to be thermodynamically unstable, and will eventually either evaporate or grow. However, as a counterpart of nanodroplets, nanobubbles located at the solid-liquid interface were recently demonstrated by numerous experiments to …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 012404] Published Fri Jul 26, 2013

The photoinduced motion of an oil droplet on an aqueous solution under local irradiation by a green laser is reported. The results showed that a repulsive force is generated on pure water, while an attractive force is observed with an aqueous solution containing a surfactant. The driving force is di…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 012403] Published Thu Jul 18, 2013

The stability of nonvolatile thin liquid films and of sessile droplets is strongly affected by finite size effects. We analyze their stability within the framework of density functional theory using the sharp kink approximation, i.e., on the basis of an effective interface Hamiltonian. We show that …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 012402] Published Fri Jul 12, 2013

We formulate a phase-field, or diffuse-interface, model for the evolution of stepped surfaces under surface diffusion in the presence of distinct material parameters across nanoscale terraces. In the sharp-interface limit, our model reduces to a Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF)-type theory for the motion …

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 014401] Published Fri Jul 12, 2013

A connection between the dynamics of a sine-Gordon chain and a certain static membrane folding problem was recently found. The one-dimensional membrane profile is a cross section of the position-time sine-Gordon amplitude profile. Here we show that when one system is embedded in a higher-dimensional…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 012401] Published Thu Jul 11, 2013

The Becker-Döring (BD) nucleation equation is known to predict a narrow double-exponential front (DEF) in the distribution of growing particles over sizes, which is due to early transient effects. When mass conservation is included, nucleation is eventually exhausted while independent growth is repl…

[Phys. Rev. E 88, 010401(R)] Published Wed Jul 10, 2013

We study the evolution of an initially conical metal surface when it is heated. For all cone angles $\alpha$ from close to zero to 90 degrees, self-similar solutions with rounded tips are found, whose radius of curvature scales like ${\left(\mathrm{time}\right)}^{1/4}$. For $\alpha \gtrsim 3^{\circ }$, theoretical profiles agree very well with experiment.…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062408] Published Thu Jun 27, 2013

We present numerical and theoretical results concerning the technologically important process of evolution of high-aspect-ratio profiles due to surface diffusion under thermal treatment. We show how a broad class of initial gratings adopt, after a short transient stage, a typical shape that can be a…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062407] Published Wed Jun 26, 2013

We use atomic force microscopy to measure the distance-dependent solvation forces and the dissipation across liquid films of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (OMCTS) confined between a silicon tip and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite substrate without active excitation of the cantilever. By analyzin…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062406] Published Fri Jun 21, 2013

We study numerically the geometrical and free-energy fluctuations of a static one-dimensional (1D) interface with a short-range elasticity, submitted to a quenched random-bond Gaussian disorder of finite correlation length $\xi >0$ and at finite temperature $T$. Using the exact mapping from the static 1…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062405] Published Mon Jun 17, 2013

A free dendrite growth under forced fluid flow is analyzed for solidification of a nonisothermal binary system. Using an approach to dendrite growth developed by Bouissou and Pelcé [Phys. Rev. A 40, 6673 (1989)], the analysis is presented for the parabolic dendrite interface with small anisotropy of…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062403] Published Fri Jun 07, 2013

In studying the dehydration of surface-moistened fumed silica Aerosil powders, we found a conductivity percolation transition at low hydration levels. Both the percolation exponent and the threshold are typical for correlated site-bond transitions in complex two-dimensional (2D) systems. The exponen…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062404] Published Fri Jun 07, 2013

From a simple bulk model for the one-dimensional steady-state solidification of a dilute binary alloy we derive the corresponding interface description. Our derivation leads to exact expressions for the fluxes and forces at the interface and for the set of Onsager coefficients. The constitutive equa…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062402] Published Wed Jun 05, 2013

A liquid drop trapped in a microchannel, in which both contact angle (wettability) and opening angle (geometry) can vary with position, is investigated based on the minimization of free energy. The calculus of variation yields the Young-Laplace equation and its further integration leads to the gener…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 062401] Published Mon Jun 03, 2013

A phase-field-crystal model is used to access the structure and thermodynamics of interfaces between two coexisting liquid-crystalline phases in two spatial dimensions. Depending on the model parameters, there is a variety of possible coexistences between two liquid-crystalline phases, including a p…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052406] Published Tue May 28, 2013

We calculate an analytical expression for the terrace-width distribution $P\left(s\right)$ for an interacting step system with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interactions. Our model is derived by mapping the step system onto a statistically equivalent one-dimensional system of classical particles. The validi…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052405] Published Fri May 24, 2013

We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the evaporation of particle-laden droplets on a heated surface. The droplets are composed of a Lennard-Jones fluid containing rigid particles, which are spherical sections of an atomic lattice, and heating is controlled through the temperature of an ato…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052404] Published Thu May 23, 2013

The nonlinear dynamics of a thin axisymmetric liquid film on a horizontal cylindrical substrate subjected to an axial double-frequency forcing that consists of two components of different amplitudes and frequencies and a possible phase shift is considered in this paper. A nonlinear evolution equatio…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052403] Published Mon May 20, 2013

The understanding of the competition between different substances while condensing on a cold surface is of high interest in situations in which it is desirable to control their condensation rates and the formed morphologies. We do the experiments for mixtures of water and hexamethyldisiloxane vapors…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 054401] Published Mon May 20, 2013

Melting and premelting phenomena in self-organized organic systems have been extensively explored in the literature, exploring distinct behaviors of different molecule lengths and morphologies. Nevertheless, the influence of the supramolecular assembly configuration on the occurrence of premelting r…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052402] Published Mon May 13, 2013

Random sequential adsorption (RSA) of polymer, modeled as a chain of identical spheres, is systematically studied. In order to control precisely anisotropy and number of degrees of freedom, two different kinds of polymers are used. In the first one, monomers are placed along a straight line, whereas…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 052401] Published Wed May 08, 2013

In simulations of the two-dimensional Ising model, we examine heterogeneous nucleation induced by a small impurity consisting of a line of $l$ fixed spins. As $l$ increases, we identify a limit of stability beyond which the metastable phase is not defined. We evaluate the free energy barrier for nucleat…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042407] Published Fri Apr 26, 2013

Experimental realizations of a one-dimensional (1D) interface always exhibit a finite microscopic width $\xi >0$; its influence is erased by thermal fluctuations at sufficiently high temperatures, but turns out to be a crucial ingredient for the description of the interface fluctuations below a charac…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042406] Published Fri Apr 19, 2013

The Kruskal-Segur approach to selection theory in diffusion-limited or Laplacian growth is extended via combination with the Zauderer decomposition scheme. This way nonlinear bulk equations become tractable. To demonstrate the method, we apply it to two-dimensional crystal growth in a potential flow…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042405] Published Mon Apr 15, 2013

The oscillatory growth of a dilute binary alloy has recently been described by a nonlinear oscillator equation that applies to small temperature gradients and large growth velocities in the setup of directional solidification. Based on a one-dimensional stability analysis of stationary solutions of …

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042402] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013

Surface fluctuation spectra of liquids are measured to unprecedented precision, down to 3 orders of magnitude below the shot-noise level using averaged correlations of interferometry measurements. This allows us to investigate the limits in our current theoretical understanding of these phenomena. T…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042403] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013

Fluorocarbon thin-film deposition is studied, which shows an anomalous high dynamic growth exponent and therefore does not fit in any universal class of fractal surface growth models. A detailed analysis of the nonlinear behavior of the surface morphology evolution is carried out, quantifying severa…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042404] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013

We consider fractional Stefan melting problems which involve a memory of the latent-heat accumulation. We show that the manner in which the memory of the latent-heat accumulation is recorded depends on the assumed nature of the transition between the liquid and the solid phases. When a sharp interfa…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 042401] Published Tue Apr 02, 2013

We investigate phase separation of near-critical binary mixtures between parallel symmetric walls in the strong adsorption regime. We take into account the renormalization effect due to the critical fluctuations using the recent local functional theory [Okamoto and Onuki, J. Chem. Phys. 136, 114704 …

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 032405] Published Tue Mar 19, 2013

To keep the formation of colloidal crystal under a centrifugation in mind, we study ordering of Brownian particles under a uniform external force. When the force is added to Brownian particles distributing uniformly in the system, the particles drift and the density of particles near walls increases…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 032403] Published Mon Mar 18, 2013

Ice lenses are formed by the migration and solidification of unfrozen water during soil freezing, which can lead to the upwards displacement of the ground surface known as frost heave. The complicated interplay between heat and mass transport that causes ice lens formation has been addressed by seve…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 032404] Published Mon Mar 18, 2013

Nucleation of ${}^4$He crystals from the metastable superfluid in high porosity silica aerogel was investigated by an optical measurement. Critical overpressures at which the first ${}^4$He crystal appeared during pressurization were measured 50 times at each temperature. Contrary to the intuitive pore-size-l…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 030401(R)] Published Fri Mar 15, 2013

We study the competitive RSOS-BD model focusing on the validity of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) ansatz $h\left(t\right)=v_{\infty }t+{\left(\Gamma t\right)}^{\beta }\chi$ and the universality of the height distributions (HDs) near the point where the model has Edwards-Wilkinson (EW) scaling. Using numerical simulations for long times, we show that t…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 034401] Published Tue Mar 12, 2013

Eutectic dendrites forming in a model ternary system have been studied using the phase-field theory. The eutectic and one-phase dendrites have similar forms, and the tip radius scales with the interface free energy as for one-phase dendrites. The steady-state eutectic patterns, appearing on these tw…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 032401] Published Mon Mar 11, 2013

The spatial structure and statistical properties of polymer interfaces grown by vapor deposition polymerization have been studied in the context of fluid turbulence. The extended self-similarity present in the correlation functions of the polymer interface uncovers two types of multiscaling for diff…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 032402] Published Mon Mar 11, 2013

We report a new first-order phase transition preceding capillary condensation and corresponding to the discontinuous formation of a curved liquid meniscus. Using a mean-field microscopic approach based on the density functional theory we compute the complete phase diagram of a prototypical two-dimen…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 020402(R)] Published Thu Feb 28, 2013

A multicomponent lattice Boltzmann scheme is used to investigate the surface coating of substrates with two topographical features by a gravity-driven thin liquid film. The considered topographies are $\mathsf{U}$- and $\mathsf{V}$-shaped grooves and mounds. For the case of substrates with two grooves, our results indica…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022409] Published Tue Feb 26, 2013

Interfacial roughening denotes the nonequilibrium process by which an initially flat interface reaches its equilibrium state, characterized by the presence of thermally excited capillary waves. Roughening of fluid interfaces has been first analyzed by Flekkoy and Rothman [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 260 (1…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022407] Published Mon Feb 25, 2013

Nonlinear evolution of three-dimensional strained islands or quantum dots in heteroepitaxial thin films is studied via a continuum elasticity model and both perturbation analysis of the system and numerical simulations of the corresponding nonlinear dynamic equation governing the film morphological …

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022408] Published Mon Feb 25, 2013

The constant surface tension assumption of the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) is known to be flawed. In order to probe beyond this limitation, we consider a microscopic, two-dimensional Lattice-Gas Automata (LGA) model of nucleation in a supersaturated system, with model input parameters $E_{ss}$ (sol…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022406] Published Wed Feb 20, 2013

In this study we have incorporated two time scales into the phase-field-crystal model of a binary alloy to explore different solute trapping properties as a function of crystal-melt interface velocity. With only diffusive dynamics, we demonstrate that the segregation coefficient, $K$ as a function of …

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022404] Published Fri Feb 15, 2013

Self-organized interfacial instabilities of an ultrathin bilayer confined between a pair of rigid surfaces is explored. The bilayers are classified based on the macroscopic dewetting behaviors of the liquid films sandwiched between a pair of confining surfaces having surface energy higher or lower t…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022405] Published Fri Feb 15, 2013

Using $p$-aminothiophenol (PATP) molecules on a gold substrate and high-vacuum tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (HV-TERS), we show that the vibrational spectra of these molecules are distinctly different from those in typical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Detailed first-principles calculations h…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 020401(R)] Published Wed Feb 13, 2013

In this paper, we analyze the charge dynamics of ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMCs) in response to voltage inputs composed of a large dc bias and a small superimposed time-varying voltage. The IPMC chemoelectrical behavior is described through the modified Poisson-Nernst-Planck framework, in whi…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022403] Published Wed Feb 06, 2013

When solid surfaces are immersed in aqueous solutions, some of their charges can dissociate and leave behind charged patches on the surface. Although the charges are distributed heterogeneously on the surface, most of the theoretical models treat them as homogeneous. For overall non-neutral surfaces…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022402] Published Tue Feb 05, 2013

In the context of Rosenfeld's fundamental measure theory, we show that the bending rigidity is not equal to zero for a hard-sphere fluid in contact with a curved hard wall. The implication is that the Hadwiger theorem does not hold in this case and the surface free energy is given by the Helfrich ex…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 022401] Published Mon Feb 04, 2013

For a liquid advancing or receding on a flat bare solid in a vapor atmosphere, we show that no singularities in fact arise at the contact (triple) line. Contrary to common expectations, this does not require any “regularizing” microscopic effect (such as slip at the substrate, disjoining pressure or…

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 010401(R)] Published Mon Jan 28, 2013

Here we report thermal evaporation dynamics of Au nanoparticles on single crystal oxide substrates, including MgO, SrTiO${}_3$, and Al${}_2$O${}_3$. The size reduction rate of Au nanoparticles via thermal treatments is strongly dependent on not only temperature but also pressure. Lowering the pressure of inert Ar …

[Phys. Rev. E 87, 012405] Published Wed Jan 23, 2013