Adsorption phenomena in amphiphilic systems

Grain Boundary Complexions and Phase Transformations in Al- and Cu-Based Alloys

High-pressure torsion has been used to obtain the ultra-fine grained (UFG) state with a high specific area of grain boundaries (GBs) in Al-Zn, Al-Mg, Cu-Ag, Cu-Co, and Cu-Ni solid solutions with face-centered cubic (fcc) lattices. The UFG samples were heated in a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Small endothermic peaks in the DSC curves were observed in the one-phase solid-solution area of the respective phase diagrams, i.e., far away from the bulk solidus and solvus lines. A possible explanation of these endothermic peaks is based on the hypothesis of phase transformations between GB complexions. This hypothesis has been supported by observations with transmission electron microscopy and electron backscattering diffraction. The new lines of GB phase transformations have been constructed in the Al-Zn, Al-Mg, Cu-Ag, Cu-Co, and Cu-Ni bulk phase diagrams.

Quasiwetting on spherical solid surfaces by oil-water-amphiphile mixtures

We study the wetting behavior on spherical walls by ternary mixtures of oil, water, and an amphiphile. We use the Ginzburg-Landau free energy with a single order parameter and find that there are different stable structures of the interface and that a quasiwetting transition is the mechanism involved in the transition among them. We calculate these wetting transitions for two sets of parameters in the bulk free energy which are known to show microemulsion behavior. The surface transitions are thin-thick first-order transitions (continuous transitions are absent), and the phase diagram in surface parameter space is constructed. For the first set of bulk parameters water, oil, and a microemulsion coexist, and we study the first-order transition where the oil phase wets the wall-microemulsion interface and its behavior as the radius of the wall becomes large. Therefore, we recover the known wetting transitions on a planar wall. In the second set of bulk parameters only water and oil coexist, and for some sizes of the solid wall, the oil phase wets the wall-water interface, and the phase behavior is extremely rich. We obtain a coexistence of four surface phases or two triple points followed by three lines of first-order transitions which end at three critical points depending on the radius of the surface. When there are micellar metastable solutions in bulk, the behavior of the thickness of the wetting layer of the oil phase as the radius of the spherical wall gets larger is nonmonotonic. We associate this behavior with the intrinsic micelle structure due to the spontaneous curvature of the model.

Fluctuation-induced constraints on the observation of unbinding in a confined complex fluid

An extensive study of the effect of fluctuations on the unbinding of an interface from a wall in a ternary system is presented. The framework upon which the analysis is based is a linear functional renormalization group scheme of the appropriate effective interface Hamiltonian. The interface model includes position-dependent gradient coefficients, and their presence is shown to be equivalent to modifications of the bare interface potential that are highly relevant in determining the renormalized critical behavior. We analyze the modified interface potential in a mean-field-like way for both bare critical and first-order unbinding transitions in order to highlight the key effects. We further perform a detailed study of the linearized renormalization group equations identifying three fluctuation regimes and recovering earlier predictions for nonuniversal critical exponents. The surface phase diagram changes dramatically under renormalization with, most notably, fluctuation-induced reentrant behavior. We show that in the revised phase diagram the unbound region is limited in extent indicating that the opportunity for observing an unbinding transition in a confined complex fluid is highly restricted.