Wetting transitions of Ne

TL;DR

This study investigates the wetting behavior of neon on various surfaces using Monte Carlo simulations, revealing nonwetting, drying, and prewetting transitions depending on the surface material and temperature.

Contribution

It provides new insights into neon's wetting transitions on weakly attractive surfaces through detailed computational modeling and analysis.

Findings

Nonwetting observed on Li, Rb, Cs below 42 K

Drying behavior near Cs surface

Prewetting transition near 28 K for Mg surface

Abstract

We report studies of the wetting behavior of Ne on very weakly attractive surfaces, carried out with the Grand Canonical Monte Carlo method. The Ne-Ne interaction was taken to be of Lennard-Jones form, while the Ne-surface interaction was derived from an ab initio calculation of Chizmeshya et al. Nonwetting behavior was found for Li, Rb, and Cs in the temperature regime explored (i.e., T < 42 K). Drying behavior was manifested in a depleted fluid density near the Cs surface. In contrast, for the case of Mg (a more attractive potential) a prewetting transition was found near T= 28 K. This temperature was found to shift slightly when a corrugated potential was used instead of a uniform potential. The isotherm shape and the density profiles did not differ qualitatively between these cases.