Spinodal Theory: A Common Rupturing Mechanism in Spinodal Dewetting and Surface Directed Phase Separation (Some Technological Aspects: Spatial Correlations and the Significance of Dipole-Quadrupole Interaction in Spinodal Dewetting)

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...

Spinodal phase separation in complex fluids

we study the early stages of the phase separation of an amphiphilic

Patterning Polymer Thin Films: Lithographically Induced Self Assembly and Spinodal Dewetting

Dynamic instability of strongly confined thin polymer films in spinodal dewetting.

We present a general criterion for determining the dynamic instability of a thin polymer film that is strongly confined to a substrate. When such a polymer film is heated above its glass transition temperature, it dewets from the substrate by a spinodal dewetting scenario, in which the onset of the instability is governed by dispersion force and residual thermal stress. It turns out that the th...

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...