Layering of a liquid metal in contact with a hard wall

Willem Jan Huisman, Joost F. Peters, Michel J. Zwanenburg, Steven A. de Vries, Trevor E. Derry, Douglas Abernathy and J. Friso van der Veen ()
Additional contact information
Willem Jan Huisman: FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics
Joost F. Peters: University of Amsterdam, Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute
Michel J. Zwanenburg: University of Amsterdam, Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute
Steven A. de Vries: FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics
Trevor E. Derry: Schonland Research Centre for Nuclear Sciences, University of Witwatersrand
Douglas Abernathy: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
J. Friso van der Veen: University of Amsterdam, Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute

Nature, 1997, vol. 390, issue 6658, 379-381

Abstract: Abstract When a liquid makes contact with a solid wall, theoretical studies1,2,3,4 indicate that the atoms or molecules will become layered adjacent to the wall, giving rise to an oscillatory density profile. This expectation has not, however, been directly verified, although an oscillatory force curve is seen for liquids compressed between solid surfaces5. Here we present the results of an X-ray scattering study of liquid gallium metal in contact with a (111) diamond surface. We see pronounced layering in the liquid density profile which decays exponentially with increasing distance from the wall. The layer spacing is about 3.8 å, which is equal to the repeat distance of (001) planes of upright gallium dimers in solid α-gallium. Thus it appears that the liquid near thewall assumes a solid-like structure similar to the α-phase, which is nucleated on freezing at lower temperatures. This kind of ordering should significantly influence flow, capillary osmosis, lubrication and wetting properties5,6, and is likely to trigger heterogeneous nucleation of the solid.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/37069 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:390:y:1997:i:6658:d:10.1038_37069

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/37069

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().