Disjoining pressure and the film-height-dependent surface tension of thin liquid films: new insight from capillary wave fluctuations

Luis G MacDowell; Jorge Benet; Nebil A Katcho; Jose M G Palanco

doi:10.1016/j.cis.2013.11.003

Disjoining pressure and the film-height-dependent surface tension of thin liquid films: new insight from capillary wave fluctuations

Adv Colloid Interface Sci. 2014 Apr:206:150-71. doi: 10.1016/j.cis.2013.11.003. Epub 2013 Nov 16.

Authors

Luis G MacDowell¹, Jorge Benet², Nebil A Katcho³, Jose M G Palanco⁴

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 28040, Spain. Electronic address: lgmac@quim.ucm.es.
² Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 28040, Spain.
³ LITEN, CEA-Grenoble, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
⁴ Departamento de Química Aplicada, ETSI Aeronauticos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040, Spain.

PMID: 24351859
DOI: 10.1016/j.cis.2013.11.003

Abstract

In this paper we review simulation and experimental studies of thermal capillary wave fluctuations as an ideal means for probing the underlying disjoining pressure and surface tensions, and more generally, fine details of the Interfacial Hamiltonian Model. We discuss recent simulation results that reveal a film-height-dependent surface tension not accounted for in the classical Interfacial Hamiltonian Model. We show how this observation may be explained bottom-up from sound principles of statistical thermodynamics and discuss some of its implications.

Keywords: Augmented Young–Laplace equation; Capillary wave broadening; Capillary wave spectrum; Disjoining pressure; Interface potential; Interfacial Hamiltonian; Surface tension; Thermal capillary waves; Thin liquid films; Wetting.