Liquid bridges in chemically structured slit pores

Wetting phenomena are theoretically studied for a slit pore or slab geometr y between two structured surfaces which contain stripes of lyophilic surfac e domains. Two different approaches are used and compared: Monte Carlo simu lations of lattice gas models and minimization methods applied to effective interface models. Both types of calculations show that the wetting liquid often attains anvil-like bridges which are not translationally invariant pa rallel to the surface stripes. As a control parameter such as the Liquid vo lume or the surface separation is changed, these bridges undergo morphologi cal wetting transitions to symmetric or asymmetric channel states.