In this work led by Prof. Alexandr Malijevský, published in the journal Physical Review E, we theoretically analyze bridging transitions that emerge between two sinusoidally shaped walls of amplitude A, wavenumber k, and mean separation L. The focus is on weakly corrugated walls to examine the properties of bridging transitions in the limit when the walls become flat. We found that decreasing k, (i.e., by increasing the system wavelength) induces a continuous phenomenon associated with the growth of bridging films concentrated near the system necks, with the thickness of these films diverging as ∼k−2/3 in the limit of k → 0. In contrast, the limit of vanishing wall roughness by reducing A cannot be considered in this context, as there exists a minimal value Amin (k, L) of the amplitude below which bridging transition does not occur. On the other hand, for amplitudes A > Amin (k, L), the bridging transition always precedes global condensation in the system. These predictions, including the scaling property Amin ∝ kL^2, are verified numerically using density-functional theory.
Fig. 1. An illustrative bridging state between two sinusoidally shaped walls obtained from a density functional theory
- Malijevský A., Pospíšil M.: Asymptotic properties of bridging transitions in sinusoidally shaped walls. Phys. Rev. E 2024, 110, 064803. doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.110.064803