Bruce Law
Professor
Address:	327 Cardwell Hall
Phone:	(785) 532-1618
E-mail:	bmlaw@phys.ksu.edu
Personal Webpage
Ph.D. Victoria University, New Zealand, 1986
B.S. Victoria University, New Zealand, 1978

Research Area

Liquid Surface Physics

Our research is centered around liquid surfaces and the structural phase transitions that can occur on them. The physics of liquid surfaces, thin films, and competitive surface adsorption is rather poorly understood despite its importance in many technological and biological processes such as catalysis, electrolysis, and osmosis. The techniques of high precision video microscopy, interferometry, and surface-modified polarization of laser light are used to study (i) the dynamics of surface nucleation, growth, and coalescence of microscopic liquid droplets into uniform liquid films, (ii) the influence of line tension effects on liquid droplet shapes, and (iii) the behavior of adsorbed and wetting films in the vicinity of a bulk second order phase transition.

Research Support

• National Science Foundation
• Department of Energy

Recent Selected Publications

• L. W. Marschand, M. Brown, L. B. Lurio, B. M. Law, S. Uran, I. Kuzmenko, and T. Gog, "X-ray specular reflectivity study of a critical binary fluid mixture", Phys. Rev. E 72, 011509 (2005).
• J. K. Whitmer, S. B. Kiselev and B. M. Law, "Adsorption at the liquid-vapor surface of a binary liquid mixture,” J. Chem. Phys., 123, 204720 (2005).
• Y. Takata, J.-H. J. Cho, B. M. Law and M. Aratono, "Ellipsometric search for vapor layers at liquid-hydrophobic solid surfaces", Langmuir 22, 1715 (2006).