Wetting Near Triple Points

K. G. Sukhatme, J. E. Rutledge and P. Taborek

Department of Physics and Astronomy

University of California Irvine, CA 92697-4575

Reference: Physical Review Letters, V 80,p. 129(Jan. 1998) Here's the .pdf file

Introduction

Experimental Setup

Data

Discussion

Results

References

Abstract

The quartz microbalance technique has been used to study the coverage of argon and methane films in the vicinity of the bulk triple point. In contrast to previous measurements, close to the triple point, discontinuities in the coverage indicate first order surface phase transitions. A thermodynamic model shows that argon forms a layered solid-liquid film in a range around the triple point, but is liquid both above and below this range. Methane films make a transition directly from solid to liquid. These observations are examples of the rich phase behavior near bulk triple points predicted by Pandit and Fisher.