The influence of line tension on the formation of liquid bridges

TL;DR

This paper investigates how line tension influences the formation and growth of liquid bridges between substrates, revealing different transition scenarios and phase diagrams based on line tension values.

Contribution

It introduces a macroscopic analysis of liquid bridge formation considering line tension effects, identifying distinct transition behaviors and constructing phase diagrams.

Findings

Two distinct transition scenarios depending on line tension value.

Phase diagrams illustrating the influence of geometric and thermodynamic parameters.

Dependence of bridge width on system parameters and line tension.

Abstract

The formation of liquid bridges between a planar and conical substrates is analyzed macroscopically taking into account the line tension. Depending on the value of the line tension coefficient \tau and geometric parameters of the system one observes two different scenarios of liquid bridge formation upon changing the fluid state along the bulk liquid-vapor coexistence. For \tau > \tau * (\tau * < 0) there is a first-order transition to a state with infinitely thick liquid bridge. For \tau < \tau * the scenario consists of two steps: first there is a first-order transition to a state with liquid bridge of finite thickness which upon further increase of temperature is followed by continuous growth of the thickness of the bridge to infinity. In addition to constructing the relevant phase diagram we examine the dependence of the width of the bridge on thermodynamic and geometric parameters of the system.