Fundamental measure density functional theory study of liquid-vapor interface of dipolar and quadrupolar fluids

Abstract

We have studied interfacial structure and properties of liquid-vapor interfaces of dipolar fluids and quadrupolar fluids, respectively, using the classical density functional theory (DFT). Towards this end, we employ the fundamental measure DFT for a reference hard-sphere (HS) part of free energy and the modified mean field approximation for the correlation function of dipolar or quadrupolar fluid. At low temperatures we find that both the liquid-vapor interfacial density profile and orientational order parameter profile exhibit weakly damped oscillatory decay into the bulk liquid. At high temperatures the decay of interfacial density and order parameter profiles is entirely monotonic. The scaled temperature τ = 1 - T/T(c) that separates the two qualitatively different interfacial structures is in the range 0.10-0.15. At a given (dimensionless) temperature, increasing the dipolar or quadrupolar moment enhances the density oscillations. Application of an electric field (normal to the interface) will damp the oscillations. Likewise, at the given temperature, increasing the strength of any multipolar moment also increases the surface tensions while increasing the strength of the applied electric field will reduce the surface tensions. The results are compared with those based on the local-density approximations (LDA) for the reference HS part of free energy as well as with results of numerical experiments.