Abstract. Dewetting instabilities cause a thin liquid film coating a solid substrate to rupture and finally form complex patterns, which are quasiequilibrium parabolic droplets connected by an ultra thin residual film. During the Ostwald ripening process, droplets exchange mass through the residual thin film without touching each other. Bigger ones grow while smaller ones shrink and disappear. ...

A configuration of near-equilibrium liquid droplets sitting on a precursor film which wets the entire substrate can coarsen in time by two different mechanisms: collapse or collision of droplets. The collapse mechanism, i.e., a larger droplet grows at the expense of a smaller one by mass exchange through the precursor film, is also known as Ostwald ripening. As was shown by Glasner andWitelski ...

Multi-layered hollow LiYF4:Eu(3+) micro-octahedrons, with about 400 nm of single-layer thickness and 300 nm of interlayer space, have been synthesized via a facile hydrothermal route in the presence of surfactant ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA). The mechanisms of the morphology evolution of the LiYF4:Eu micro-octahedrons are investigated in detail. Time-dependent experiments indicate th...

Low area density Ge/Si(100) hut cluster ensembles are stable during days-long growth temperature anneals. Real-time scanning tunneling microscopy shows that all islands grow slowly at a decreasing rate throughout the anneal. Island growth depletes the Ge supersaturation that, in turn, reduces the island growth rate. A mean-field facet nucleation and growth model quantitatively predicts the obse...