Surface-induced order and disorder: Critical phenomena at first-order phase transitions (invited)

Abstract

Recent theoretical work about the influence of a surface on first‐order phase transitions is reviewed. Several types of surface‐induced disorder (SID) and surface‐induced order (SIO) transitions are discussed. These transitions exhibit interface delocalization phenomena, long‐range correlations, and critical behavior of local surface quantities. As a consequence, a variety of universal surface exponents can be defined although there are no bulk exponents. These surface exponents are calculated within Landau theory which is valid for space dimension d>3, and within effective interface models for d=2 and d=3. An estimate of finite size effects on SID and SIO is also given. Finally, it is discussed which critical effects at SID and SIO should be most easily accessible to experiments and to computer simulations.