Pathways to dewetting in hydrophobic confinement.

ABSTRACT: Liquid water can become metastable with respect to its vapor in hydrophobic confinement. The resulting dewetting transitions are often impeded by large kinetic barriers. According to macroscopic theory, such barriers arise from the free energy required to nucleate a critical vapor tube that spans the region between two hydrophobic surfaces--tubes with smaller radii collapse, whereas larger ones grow to dry the entire confined region. Using extensive molecular simulations of water between two nanoscopic hydrophobic surfaces, in conjunction with advanced sampling techniques, here we show that for intersurface separations that thermodynamically favor dewetting, the barrier to dewetting does not correspond to the formation of a (classical) critical vapor tube. Instead, it corresponds to an abr

SUBMITTER: Remsing RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4500207 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature