Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 11 August 1995:
Vol. 269. no. 5225, pp. 816 - 819
DOI: 10.1126/science.269.5225.816
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Confinement-Induced Phase Transitions in Simple Liquids

Jacob Klein 1 and Eugenia Kumacheva 1

1 Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

The liquid-to-solid transition of a simple model liquid confined between two surfaces was studied as a function of surface separation. From large surface separations (more than 1000 angstroms) down to a separation corresponding to seven molecular layers, the confined films displayed a liquid-like shear viscosity. When the surface separation was further decreased by a single molecular spacing, the films underwent an abrupt, reversible transition to a solid. At the transition, the rigidity of the confined films (quantified in terms of an "effective viscosity") increased reversibly by at least seven orders of magnitude.

Submitted on January 24, 1995
Accepted on May 3, 1995


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Density Fluctuations Under Confinement: When Is a Fluid Not a Fluid?.
M. Heuberger, M. Zach, and N. D. Spencer (2001)
Science 292, 905-908
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)