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Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Kinetic wetting of a moving planar defect by a new phase
Alexander L Korzhenevskii1, Richard Bausch, Rudi Schmitz
1Institute for Problems of Mechanical Engineering, RAS, Bol'shoi prospect V. O., 61, St. Petersburg, 199178, Russia.
Abstract:
Close to a bulk phase transition, a moving planar defect can be covered by a layer of the ordered phase. This, in fact, happens above the transition point in some finite region of the temperature-velocity diagram. In the case of a first-order transition this region is furnished with a net of nonequilibrium phase-transition lines. The topology of this net resembles that of the phase diagram of a first-order wetting transition in thermal equilibrium. In particular, there appears a kinetic complete-wetting line where a significant change of the drag coefficient of the defect is predicted.
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