Descripción: Adsorption on single planar walls and filling of slits with identical planar walls are investigated in the frame of the density functional theory. In this sort of slits the external potential is symmetric with respect to its central plane. Calculations were carried out by applying both the canonical and grand canonical ensembles (CE and GCE, respectively). The behavior is analyzed by varying the strength of the adsorbate-substrate attraction, the temperature T, and the coverage Results obtained for physisorption of Xe on alkaline surfaces are reported in the present work. Prewetting (PW) lines and wetting temperatures, T w, are determined from the analysis of adsorption on single walls. The filling of slits is analyzed for temperatures T T w. It is found that whenever for a given Xe-substrate combination the adsorption on a single wall exhibits a first-order wetting transition then asymmetric profiles that break the left-right symmetry of the external potential appear in the filling of an equivalent slit. These spontaneously symmetry breaking (SSB) solutions occur in a restricted range of with a T-dependent width. In the case of closed slits analyzed in the CE scheme, the obtained asymmetric profiles exhibit lower Helmholtz free energies than the symmetric species and, therefore, could be stabilized in this geometry. For open slits, the GCE scheme yields all the symmetric and SSB states in the corresponding convex regimes of the free energy. It is shown that both the CE and the GCE frames yield three coexistent states, two symmetric and one asymmetric twofold degenerate. Both a PW line and the related SSB effect terminate at the same temperature. For rather strongly attractive surfaces reentrant SSB states are found at a fixed value of T. © Copyright 2011 Author(s).

Descripción: The confinement of Ar in planar slits of two identical parallel semi-infinite walls of alkali metals, alkaline-earth metal Mg, and CO 2 is investigated within the framework of the density functional theory. It is assumed that (1) the fluid atoms interact via a recently proposed effective attractive pair potential with strength, εff, which reproduces the experimental data of the surface tension of the liquid-vapor interface at the bulk coexistence curve, and (2) the adsorption on the walls is described by ab initio potentials characterized by a well depth, Wsf. In this way the systems were studied in the framework of a realistic approach. We found that for small coverages, the slit is always filled by forming two symmetric vapor films, one at each wall. For increasing coverage the behavior depends on the ratio Wsf/εff and the temperature T. In the case of alkali metals, we found at the triple point, Tt, of the adsorbate a regime of average density ρ*av in which the ground state exhibits asymmetric density profiles, leading to the so-called spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) effect. The SSB appears at an average density ρ*sb1 and disappears at a higher average density ρ*sb2 . When T is increased, the range of densities ρ*sb1≤ρ*av≤ ρ* sb2 diminishes and eventually the SSB disappears at a critical temperature, Tsb, which coincides with the critical prewetting temperature Tcpw observed in the adsorption on a single wall. For T>Tcpw the slit is filled symmetrically up to the phase transition to capillary condensation. All these features are examined as a function of the strength of the substrate and the width of the slit. Furthermore, no SSB effect was found for Mg and CO2. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.