[en] The microscopic stripe pillar is one of the most frequently adopted building blocks for hydrophobic substrates. However, at high temperatures the particles on the droplet surface readily evaporate and re-condense on the pillar sidewall, which makes the droplet highly unstable and undermines the overall hydrophobic performance of the pillar. In this work, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of the simple liquid at a single stripe pillar edge defect is performed to characterize the droplet’s critical wetting properties considering the evaporation–condensation effect. From the simulation results, the droplets slide down from the edge defect with a volume smaller than the critical value, which is attributed to the existence of the wetting layer on the stripe pillar sidewall. Besides, the analytical study of the pillar sidewall and wetting layer potential field distribution manifests the relation between the simulation parameters and the degree of the droplet pre-wetting, which agrees well with the MD simulation results. (paper)

[en] A simplified analytical model of single-level quantum dot (QD) refrigerator was studied without considering the electron spin and Coulomb interaction. Based on the ballistic transport of electrons between two reservoirs across the QD, the Joule heat of the system was assumed to be generated from the Ohmic contacts between the QD and reservoirs. By using the transition rate equation, the performance of the QD refrigerator was studied with respect to the electron transmission probability and the partition ratio (i.e. the fraction of Joule heat generated in the system that releases into the cold reservoir). The analytical expression of the maximum coefficient of performance (COP) was obtained under the exoreversible working condition. The Carnot-bound-dependent COP at maximum cooling power of the QD system was also demonstrated numerically. The results of this work may provide some guidance for the design of mesoscopic refrigerators. (paper)