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Issue No. 2 | 01.05.2004
Patterns in Drying Water Films
Stephen G. Lipson
Why do apparently uniform and simple systems spontaneously develop complex patterns on their route to thermal equilibrium?
Abstract
The study of water films drying off a mica substrate, to which it is bound by two types of interaction- Van der Waals and polar- of different signs, is helping to understand the answer. These films, because of the two opposing attractions, exhibit a first order phase transition between regions having film thicknesses about 2nm and about 400nm. The dynamics of the transition behave similarly to solidification from the melt and results in patterns which can be compared quantitatively to simulations of solidification in isotropic materials. Recently developed interferometric methods have allowed the predicted film thickness profiles to be measured.
Click here for the appendix (English)
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About the Author
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Stephen G. Lipson, Professor at the Physics Department of the Technion, Haifa. With the Technion since June 1966, currently the incumbent of the El-Op chair in Professor of Electro-optics. He has worked in various fields of physics, including cryogenics, classical optics and physics of complex systems. When not working, his hobby is artistic woodwork.
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