ON THE STOKES-EINSTEIN MODEL OF SURFACE-DIFFUSION ALONG SOLID-SURFACES - SLIP BOUNDARY-CONDITIONS

Slip boundary conditions-even if only infinitesimal in magnitude-are shown to remove the hydrodynamic no-slip contact singularity existing in the Stokes-Einstein model of the surface diffusion of a spherical Brownian solute molecule along a planar solid surface bounding a semi-infinite viscous solvent. In particular, it is shown that the existence of any degree of slip on both the sphere and the plane surfaces, however small, suffices to remove the contact singularity, thereby rendering the surface diffusivity nonzero. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.