Electric Field Driven Reversible Spinodal Dewetting of Thin Liquid Films on Slippery Surfaces

Dewetting of Thin Viscoelastic Polymer Films on Slippery Substrates

Stability and dewetting of thin liquid films

The stability of thin liquid coatings is of fundamental interest in everyday life. Homogeneous and non-volatile liquid coatings may dewet either by heterogeneous nucleation, thermal nucleation, or spinodal dewetting. Wetting and dewetting is explained on a fundamental level, including a discussion of relevant interactions. The chapter will also address the various dewetting scenarios and explai...

Alternative dewetting pathways of thin liquid films

An alternative pathway for the initiation of dewetting in thin metastable films of partially miscible liquid mixtures is described. In this pathway, phase separation is followed by a dewetting process at the interface between the two phases. Dewetting proceeds (from the sample edges inward) as holes form. The initially smooth film breaks up into droplets at rates much faster than those allowed ...

Dewetting Modes of Thin Metallic Films: Nucleation of Holes and Spinodal Dewetting.

We have studied the dewetting of thin liquid metal films (Au, Cu, Ni) on fused silica substrates which occurs after melting with a Q-switched laser pulse. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and scanning near field acoustic microscopy reveal two distinctly different modes of the dewetting process: On one hand, we observe heterogeneous nucleation of “dry” circular patches, which gr...

Kinetics of spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films.

We study universality in the kinetics of spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films, via simulations of the thin film equation. It is shown that, in addition to morphology and free energy, the number density of local maxima in the film profile can also be used to identify the early, late, and intermediate stages of spinodal phase separation. A universal curve between the number den...