Mercury wetting film on sapphire

We have measured optical properties of a mercury wetting film on sapphire under high temperature and high pressure near the liquid-gas critical point of mercury by using a newly developed 45 degrees reflection technique. We have analyzed the experimental data to deduce the density, the thickness, and the coverage of the wetting film quantitatively as functions of pressure and temperature. As a first approximation, we have assumed a slab model for the density profile of the wetting film, and found that the density of the wetting film dslab is much smaller than that of bulk liquid at the liquid-vapor coexistence curve. This result is consistent with the Lifshitz theory, from which we may predict that the sapphire substrate prefers wetting film with density lower than the metal-nonmetal transition. When the temperature is close enough to the prewetting critical temperature Tpw(c), the effective slab density dslab shows a sharp decrease as the pressure approaches the liquid-gas coexistence. This indicates that the slab model is not sufficient to describe the shape of the wetting film, and a smooth variation of the density has to be taken into account. In the prewetting supercritical region, two anomalies are observed in the reflectances. Possible mechanisms of these anomalies are discussed.