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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Combining Microfluidics and Microrheology to Determine Rheological Properties of Soft Matter during Repeated Phase Transitions
Published on: April 19, 2018
Rounding of phase transitions in cylindrical pores
Dorothea Wilms1, Alexander Winkler, Peter Virnau
1Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
Abstract:
Phase transitions of systems confined in long cylindrical pores (capillary condensation, wetting, crystallization, etc.) are intrinsically not sharply defined but rounded. The finite size of the cross section causes destruction of long range order along the pore axis by spontaneous nucleation of domain walls. This rounding is analyzed for two models (Ising or lattice gas and Asakura-Oosawa model for colloid-polymer mixtures) by Monte Carlo simulations and interpreted by a phenomenological theory. We show that characteristic differences between the behavior of pores of finite length and infinitely long pores occur. In pores of finite length a rounded transition occurs first, from phase coexistence between two states towards a multidomain configuration. A second transition to the axially homogeneous phase follows near pore criticality.
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