Motivated by recent experiments with confined binary liquid mixtures near demixing, we study the universal critical properties of a system, which belongs to the Ising universality class, in the film geometry. We employ periodic boundary conditions in the two lateral directions and fixed boundary conditions on the two confining surfaces, such that one of them has a spatially homogeneous adsorption preference while the other one exhibits a laterally alternating adsorption preference, resembling locally a single chemical step. By means of Monte Carlo simulations of an improved Hamiltonian, so that the leading scaling corrections are suppressed, numerical integration, and finite-size scaling analysis we determine the critical Casimir force and its universal scaling function for various values of the aspect ratio of the film. In the limit of a vanishing aspect ratio the critical Casimir force of this system reduces to the mean value of the critical Casimir force for laterally homogeneous ++ and +- boundary conditions, corresponding to the surface spins on the two surfaces being fixed to equal and opposite values, respectively. We show that the universal scaling function of the critical Casimir force for small but finite aspect ratios displays a linear dependence on the aspect ratio which is solely due to the presence of the lateral inhomogeneity. We also analyze the order-parameter profiles at criticality and their universal scaling function which allows us to probe theoretical predictions and to compare with experimental data.
Recent experiments have measured the critical Casimir force acting on a colloid immersed in a binary liquid mixture near its continuous demixing phase transition and exposed to a chemically structured substrate. Motivated by these experiments, we study the critical behavior of a system, which belongs to the Ising universality class, for the film geometry with one planar wall chemically striped, such that there is a laterally alternating adsorption preference for the two species of the binary liquid mixture, which is implemented by surface fields. For the opposite wall we employ alternatively a…
We study the critical Casimir force for a film geometry in the Ising universality class. We employ a homogeneous adsorption preference on one of the confining surfaces, while the opposing surface exhibits quenched random disorder, leading to a random local adsorption preference. Disorder is characterized by a parameter p, which measures, on average, the portion of the surface that prefers one component, so that p=0, 1 correspond to homogeneous adsorption preference. By means of Monte Carlo simulations of an improved Hamiltonian and finite-size scaling analysis, we determine the critical Casimi…
Motivated by recent experiments with confined binary liquid mixtures near their continous demixing phase transition we study the critical behavior of a system, which belongs to the Ising universality class, for the film geometry with one planar wall chemically structured such that there is a laterally alternating adsorption preference for the species of the binary liquid mixture. By means of Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis we determine the critical Casimir force and the corresponding universal scaling function.
Recent experimental realizations of the critical Casimir effect have been implemented by monitoring colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture near demixing and exposed to a chemically structured substrate. In particular, critical Casimir forces have been measured for surfaces consisting of stripes with periodically alternating adsorption preferences, forming chemical steps between them. Motivated by these experiments, we analyze the contribution of such chemical steps to the critical Casimir force for the film geometry and within the Ising universality class. By means of Monte Ca…
When masless excitations are limited or modified by the presence of material bodies one observes a force atcing between them generally called Casimir force. Such excitations are present in any fluid system close to its true bulk critical point. We derive exact analytical results for both the temperature and external ordering field behavior of the thermodynamic Casimir force within the mean-field Ginzburg-Landau Ising type model of a simple fluid or binary liquid mixture. We investigate the case when under a film geometry the boundaries of the system exhibit strong adsorption onto one of the ph…
Geometrical structures of confining surfaces profoundly influence the adsorption of fluids upon approaching a critical point T_c in their bulk phase diagram, i.e., for t=(T-T_c)/T_c -> +/-0. Guided by general scaling considerations, we calculate, within mean-field theory, the temperature dependence of the order parameter profile in a wedge with opening angle gamma<pi and close to a ridge (gamma>pi) for T>T_c and T<T_c and in the presence of surface fields. For a suitably defined reduced excess adsorption Gamma_\pm(gamma,t -> +/-0)~Gamma_\pm(gamma)|t|^{beta-2nu} we compute the universal amplitu…
When massless excitations are limited or modified by the presence of material bodies one observes a force acting between them generally called Casimir force. Such excitations are present in any fluid system close to its true bulk critical point. We derive exact analytical results for both the temperature and external ordering field behavior of the thermodynamic Casimir force within the mean-field Ginzburg-Landau Ising type model of a simple fluid or binary liquid mixture. We investigate the case when under a film geometry the boundaries of the system exhibit strong adsorption onto one of the p…
Adsorption at a 1-dimensional planar substrate equipped with a localized chemical inhomogeneity is studied within the framework of a continuum interfacial model from the point of view of interfacial morphology and correlation function properties. Exact expressions for the one-point and two-point probability distribution functions $P_Γ(l_Γ)$ and $P_{Γ_1, Γ_2}(l_{Γ_1},l_{Γ_2})$, $l_Γ$ being the interface position above a fixed point $Γ$ of the substrate, are derived for temperature corresponding to the inhomogeneity's wetting transition. It is demonstrated that in the limit of macroscopic inhomo…
We study adsorption of liquid at a one-dimensional substrate composed of a single chemical inhomogeneity of width $2L$ placed on an otherwise homogeneous, planar, solid surface. The excess point free energy $η(L,T)$ associated with the adsorbed layer's inhomogeneity induced by the substrate's chemical structure is calculated within exact continuum transfer-matrix approach. It is shown that the way $η(L,T)$ varies with $L$ depends sensitively on the temperature regime. It exhibits logarithmic divergence as a function of $L$ in the limit $L\to\infty$ for temperatures such that the chemical inhom…
Critical properties of a liquid film between two planar walls are investigated in the canonical ensemble, within which the total number of particles, rather than their chemical potential, is kept constant. The effect of this constraint is analyzed within mean field theory (MFT) based on a Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional as well as via Monte Carlo simulations of the 3D Ising model with fixed total magnetization. Within MFT and for finite adsorption strengths at the walls, the thermodynamic properties of the film in the canonical ensemble can be mapped exactly onto a grand canonical ensem…
Extended de Gennes-Fisher (EdGF) local-functional method has been applied to the thermodynamic Casimir effect {\it away} from the critical point for systems in the Ising universality class confined between parallel plane plates with symmetric boundary conditions (denoted $(ab)=(++)$). Results on the universal scaling functions of the Casimir force $W_{++}(y)$ ($y$ is a temperature-dependant scaling variable) and Gibbs adsorption $\tilde G(y)$ are presented in spatial dimension $d=3$. Also, the mean-field form of the universal scaling function of the Gibbs adsorption $\tilde G(y)$ is derived wi…
To study the critical Casimir force between chemically structured boundaries immersed in a binary mixture at its demixing transition, we consider a strip of Ising spins subject to alternating fixed spin boundary conditions. The system exhibits a boundary induced phase transition as function of the relative amount of up and down boundary spins. This transition is associated with a sign change of the asymptotic force and a diverging correlation length that sets the scale for the crossover between different universal force amplitudes. Using conformal field theory and a mapping to Majorana fermion…
In a recent study [Phys. Rev. E \textbf{94}, 022103 (2016)] it has been shown that, for a fluid film subject to critical adsorption, the resulting critical Casimir force (CCF) may significantly depend on the thermodynamic ensemble. Here, we extend that study by considering fluid films within the so-called ordinary surface universality class. We focus on mean-field theory, within which the OP profile satisfies Dirichlet boundary conditions and produces a nontrivial CCF in the presence of external bulk fields or, respectively, a nonzero total order parameter within the film. Our analytical resul…
In soft and condensed matter physics, effective interactions often emerge as a result of the spatial confinement of a fluctuating field. For instance, microscopic particles in a binary liquid mixture are subject to critical Casimir forces whenever their surfaces confine the thermal fluctuations of the order parameter of this kind of solvent, the range of which diverges upon approaching the critical demixing point. Critical Casimir forces are predicted to be nonadditive on a particular large scale. However, a direct experimental evidence of this fact is still lacking. Here, we fill in this gap …
We study colloidal particles with chemically inhomogeneous surfaces suspended in a critical binary liquid mixture. The inhomogeneous particle surface is composed of patches with alternating adsorption preferences for the two components of the binary solvent. By describing the binary liquid mixture \emph{at} its consolute point in terms of the critical Ising model we exploit its conformal invariance in two spatial dimension. This allows us to determine exactly the universal profiles of the order parameter, the energy density, and the stress tensor as well as some of their correlation functions …
We analyze the lateral critical Casimir force acting between two planar, chemically inhomogeneous walls confining an infinite 2D Ising strip of width $M$. The inhomogeneity of each of the walls has size $N_1$; they are shifted by the distance $L$ along the strip. Using the exact diagonalization of the transfer matrix, we calculate the lateral critical Casimir force and discuss its properties, in particular its scaling close to the 2D bulk critical point, as a function of temperature, surface magnetic field, and the geometric parameters $M$, $N_1$, $L$. We determine the magnetization profiles w…
We study the adsorption of a fluid in the grand canonical ensemble occurring at a planar heterogeneous wall which is decorated with a chemical stripe of width $L$. We suppose that the material of the stripe strongly preferentially adsorbs the liquid in contrast to the outer material which is only partially wet. This competition leads to the nucleation of a droplet of liquid on the stripe, the height $h_m$ and shape of which (at bulk two-phase coexistence) has been predicted previously using mesoscopic interfacial Hamiltonian theory. We test these predictions using a microscopic Fundamental Mea…
We study the crossover from the ordinary to the normal surface universality class in the three-dimensional Ising universality class. This crossover is relevant for the behavior of films of binary mixtures near the demixing point and a weak adsorption at one or both surfaces. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of the improved Blume-Capel model on the simple cubic lattice. We consider systems with film geometry, where various boundary conditions are applied. We discuss corrections to scaling that are caused by the surfaces and their relation with the so called extrapolation length. To this end w…
We examine fluctuation-induced (pseudo-Casimir) interactions in nematic liquid-crystalline films confined between two surfaces, where one of the surfaces imposes a strong homeotropic anchoring (ensuring a uniform mean director profile), while the other one is assumed to be a chemically disordered substrate exhibiting an annealed, random distribution of anchoring energies. We employ a saddle-point approximation to evaluate the free energy of interaction mediated between the two surfaces and investigate how the interaction force is influenced by the presence of disordered surface anchoring energ…
We present both exact and numerical results for the behavior of the Casimir force in $O(n)$ systems with a finite extension in one direction when the system is subjected to surface fields that induce helicity in the order parameter. We show that for such systems the Casimir force in certain temperature ranges is of the order of $L^{-2}$, both above and below the critical temperature, $T_c$, of the bulk system. An example of such a system would be one with chemically modulated bounding surfaces, in which the modulation couples directly to the system's order parameter. We demonstrate that, depen…
If a fluctuating medium is confined, the ensuing perturbation of its fluctuation spectrum generates Casimir-like effective forces acting on its confining surfaces. Near a continuous phase transition of such a medium the corresponding order parameter fluctuations occur on all length scales and therefore close to the critical point this effect acquires a universal character, i.e., to a large extent it is independent of the microscopic details of the actual system. Accordingly it can be calculated theoretically by studying suitable representative model systems. We report on the direct measurement…
Using analytic and numerical approaches, we study the spatio-temporal evolution of a conserved order parameter of a fluid in film geometry, following an instantaneous quench to the critical temperature $T_c$ as well as to supercritical temperatures. The order parameter dynamics is chosen to be governed by model B within mean field theory and is subject to no-flux boundary conditions as well as to symmetric surface fields at the confining walls. The latter give rise to critical adsorption of the order parameter at both walls and provide the driving force for the non-trivial time evolution of th…
Using mesoscopic interfacial models and microscopic density functional theory we study fluid adsorption at a dry wall decorated with three completely wet stripes of width $L$ separated by distances $D_1$ and $D_2$. The stripes interact with the fluid with long-range forces inducing a large finite-size contribution to the surface free-energy. We show that this non-extensive free-energy contribution scales with $\ln L$ and drives different types of bridging transition corresponding to the merging of liquid drops adsorbed at neighbouring wetting stripes when the separation between them is molecul…
