8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

Thu 811:10-14:00P7.69Thermal capillary waves under lateral drivingAnna Maciolek, 1 Thomas H. R. Smith, 2 Oleg Vasilyev, 1 and Matthias Schmidt 31 Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems, Heisenbergstr 3, 70569, Stuttgart,Germany2 University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom3 Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, GermanyWe demonstrate that thermal motion and suitable external driving are able to produce capillarywaves at the molecular scale that travel along the interface between two coexisting thermodynamicphases, in analogy with ripples on the fluid interfaces or ocean waves. Based on computersimulation results for various microscopic and effective interface models in two and threedimensions we conjecture that the capillary wave transport occurs if the external driving createsthe lateral flux of the order parameter that has opposite directions on either sides of the interface.Moreover, driving in the direction parallel to the interface acts as an effective confinement,thus suppressing capillary-wave- like fluctuations. An analogous effect was recently observed insheared phase-separated colloidal dispersions. Lateral driving has a pronounced effect on wettingand localization-delocalization transitions.69