Thin-Thick Adsorption Phase Transitions and Competing Short-Range Forces

Thin-thick adsorption phase transitions are known in wetting phenomena as prewetting transitions for adsorbates away from two-phase coexistence, or as layering transitions in lattice systems. They also occur in adsorption on curved substrates, or in systems with competing short-range and long-range forces. Presently, thin-thick transitions are found in continuum adsorbates at two-phase coexistence, at a flat substrate, and with competing substrate-adsorbate forces of only short range. The thin-thick transition precedes, as temperature is increased, the usual first-order or critical wetting (or drying) transition.