Related papers: Mesoscaled Patterning In Nanostructured Thin Films…
Water condensation was studied on silanized (superhydrophobic) and fluorinated (superoleophobic) micro-rough aluminum surfaces of the same topography. Condensation on superhydrophobic surfaces occurred via film-wise mechanism, whereas on…
Nanometrically thin glassy films depart strikingly from the behavior of their bulk counterparts. We investigate whether the dynamical differences between bulk and thin film glasses can be understood by differences in local microscopic…
Metal films and other geometries of nanoscale thickness, when exposed to laser irradiation, melt and evolve as fluids as long as their temperature is sufficiently high. This evolution often leads to pattern formation, which may be…
Large scale molecular dynamics simulations for bidisperse nanoparticle suspensions with an explicit solvent are used to investigate the effects of evaporation rates and volume fractions on the nanoparticle distribution during drying. Our…
Manganite thin films are promising candidates for studying the strongly correlated electron systems. Understanding the growth-and morphology-driven changes in the physical properties of manganite thin films is vital for their applications…
The practical strength of oxide glasses is greatly reduced by surface flaws that form during processing and use. Instrumented indentation can mimic such real-life damage events and induce flaws and cracking under controlled conditions. At…
Some of our recent studies of the structure and mechanical properties of a special type of nanocomposite are reviewed here. In silica-latex systems, a latex film with silica inclusions is formed from a colloidal solution of both components.…
Polymer thin films doped with azobenzene molecules do have the ability to organize themselves in spontaneous surface relief gratings (SRG) under irradiation with a single polarized beam. To shed some light in this still unexplained…
Control of the crystallization process at the microscopic level makes it possible to generate the nanocrystalline samples with the desired structural and morphological properties, that is of great importance for modern industry. In the…
Self-assembled hierarchical solid surfaces are very interesting for wetting phenomena, as observed in a variety of natural and artificial surfaces. Here, we report single-walled (SWCNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) thin films…
We report a detailed study of surface and interface properties of pulsed-laser deposited NiMnSb films on Si (100) substrate as a function of film thickness. As the thickness of films is reduced below 35 nm formation of a porous layer is…
Surface-patterned ZnO thin films were fabricated by direct imprinting on ZnO sol and subsequent annealing process. The polymer-based ZnO sols were deposited on various substrates for the nanoimprint lithography and converted to…
We observed strongly size-dependent viscoelasticity in amorphous SiO2 and Si nanotubes with shell thickness down to ~8 nm. A core-shell model shows that a ~1 nm thick fluid-like surface layer has a significant effect on the mechanical…
In this study, we investigated the self-ordering process in Langmuir films of polydisperse iron oxide nanoparticles on a water surface, employing in-situ X-ray scattering, surface pressure-area isotherm analysis, and Brewster angle…
We present experiments to study the relaxation of a nano-scale cylindrical perturbation at one of the two interfaces of a thin viscous free-standing polymeric film. Driven by capillarity, the film flows and evolves towards equilibrium by…
Pulsed laser deposition from a Nd:YAG laser was employed in production of hundreds of nanometer thick quasicrystalline Ti-Zr-Ni films on glass substrate. The influence of deposition temperature Ts on the structure, morphology and…
Controlling the spatial distribution of liquid droplets on surfaces via surface energy patterning can be used to control material delivery to specified regions via selective liquid/solid wetting. While studies of the equilibrium shape of…
Wrinkles commonly develop in a thin film deposited on a soft elastomer substrate when the film is subject to compression. Motivated by recent experiments [Agrawal et al., Soft Matter 8, 7138 (2012)] that show how wrinkle morphology can be…
Nanoscale topographic features of solid surfaces can induce complex metastable behavior in colloidal and multiphase systems. Recent studies on single microparticle adsorption at liquid interfaces have reported a crossover from fast…
Despite their technological relevance, a full microscopic understanding of glasses is still lacking. This applies even more to their surfaces whose properties largely differ from that of the bulk material. Here, we experimentally…