Confined liquid

In condensed matter physics, a confined liquid is a liquid that is subject to geometric constraints on a nanoscopic scale so that most molecules are close enough to an interface to sense some difference from standard bulk conditions. Typical examples are liquids in porous media or liquids in solvation shells.

Confinement regularly prevents crystallization, which enables liquids to be supercooled below their homeogenous nucleation temperature even if this is impossible in the bulk state. This holds in particular for water, which is by far the most studied confined liquid.

Liquids under sub-millimeter confinement (e.g. in the gap between rigid walls) exhibit a solid-like mechanical response and possess a surprising large low-frequency elastic shear modulus, which scales with the inverse cubic power of the confinement length.[1]

Further reading
  • C Alba-Simionesco, B Coasne, G Dosseh, G Dudziak, K E Gubbins, R Radhakrishnan and M Sliwinska-Bartkowiak: Effects of confinement on freezing and melting. Topical Review. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 18, R15-R68 (2006)
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References
  1. Zaccone, A.; Trachenko, K. (2020). "Explaining the low-frequency shear elasticity of confined liquids". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. doi:10.1073/pnas.2010787117.
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