Browsing by Subject "Pseudosolids"

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    Solid or liquid? Solidification of a nanoconfined liquid under nonequilibrium conditions
    (American Chemical Society, 2006) Patil, S.; Matei, G.; Oral, A.; Hoffmann, P. M.
    There has been a long-standing debate about the physical state and possible phase transformations of confined liquids. In this report, we show that a model-confined liquid can behave both as a Newtonian liquid with very little change in its dynamics and as a pseudosolid, depending solely on the rate of approach of the confining surfaces. Thus, the confined liquid does not exhibit any confinement-induced solidification in thermodynamic equilibrium. Instead, solidification is induced kinetically when the two confining surfaces are approached with a minimum critical rate. This critical rate is surprisingly slow (on the order of 6 Å/s), explaining the frequent observation of confinement-induced solidification.