Influence of confining walls on the dynamics and structural behavior of an anomalous fluid


  Fabio Leoni [1]  ,  Giancarlo Franzese [2]  
[1] Tel Aviv University
[2] Universitat de Barcelona

Experiments and simulations show that the confinement modifies the dynamic, thermodynamic, as well as structural properties of liquid water, the prototypical anomalous liquid. We consider the more general case of a monocomponent liquid with anomalous properties, characterized by two competing interaction distances, that can be considered as a coarse-grained model for globular proteins, colloidal systems or, to some extent, liquid metals. We aim to understand the effect of the structure and the nature of the confining wall. To this goal we nanoconfine the fluid between a solvophilic structured wall and a solvophobic wall with no structure. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we find how these two different walls affect the coexistence among different phases, the crystal nucleation and the dynamics of the fluid.