Phase Transitions and Pattern Formation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Professor Charles Knobler is supported by a grant from The Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to study problems associated with the dynamics of phase transitions and pattern formation in condensed systems. Experiments and computer simulations will be used to study Breath Figures, the patterns formed when droplets condense on partially wetted surfaces. The research will focus on the mechanism of growth of single droplets and the effects on the patterns of fluid-surface interactions. Investigations of monolayers of fatty acids at the air-water interface will also be conducted. The evolution of two-dimensional foams at the Gas-Liquid Expanded phase transition will be studied and investigations will be carried out on the growth of striated patterns that are observed in deep quenches into Liquid Expanded-Liquid Condensed and Liquid Expanded-Gas two-phase regions. Pattern formation at interfaces in photochemical reactions will also be investigated. Finally, continued light scattering measurements on systems with three coexisting phases along a path leading to a tricritical point will provide information about the asymptotic form of the free energy.