Effect of Boundary Conditions on Fluctuations and Solid−Liquid Transition in Confined Films

Abstract

A simple model of confinement-induced freezing in thin liquid layers is presented. Under boundary conditions of vanishing displacement field at the walls, confinement suppresses the amplitude of fluctuations in a solid film below a critical value determined by the Lindemann criterion of melting. The resulting increase of the melting temperature compared to that of a bulk solid is estimated, and the connection with experiments is discussed. The effects of other boundary conditions are also studied.