Direct observation of homogeneous cavitation in nanopores

V. Doebele (1) , A. Benoit-Gonin (1) , F. Souris (1) , L. Cagnon (2) , P. Spathis (1) , Pierre-Etienne Wolf (1) , A. Grosman (3) , M. Bossert (3) , I. Trimaille (3) , Camille Noûs , E. Rolley (4)

1 NEEL - HELFA - Hélium : du fondamental aux applications
2 NEEL - MNM - Micro et NanoMagnétisme
3 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris
4 Mécanique, Matière Molle, Morphogénèse

We report on the evaporation of hexane from porous alumina and silicon membranes. These membranes contain billions of independent nanopores tailored to an ink-bottle shape, where a cavity several tens of nanometers in diameter is separated from the bulk vapor by a constriction. For narrow enough constrictions, we demonstrate that cavity evaporation proceeds by cavitation. Measurements of the pressure dependence of the cavitation rate show that, for alumina membranes, cavitation follows the bulk, homogeneous, classical nucleation theory, definitively establishing the relevance of homogeneous cavitation as an evaporation mechanism in mesoporous materials. Our results imply that porous alumina membranes are a promising new system to study liquids in a deeply metastable state.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

V. Doebele, A. Benoit-Gonin, F. Souris, L. Cagnon, P. Spathis, et al.. Direct observation of homogeneous cavitation in nanopores. Physical Review Letters, 2020, 125 (25), pp.255701. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.255701⟩. ⟨hal-03065744⟩