Related papers: Critical Thickness in Dewetting Films
Hydrocarbon films confined between smooth mica surfaces have long provided an experimental playground for model studies of structure and dynamics of confined liquids. However fundamental questions regarding the phase behavior and shear…
Drops impacting on a surface are ubiquitous in our everyday experience. This impact is understood within a commonly accepted hydrodynamic picture: it is initiated by a rapid shock and a subsequent ejection of a sheet leading to beautiful…
In quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) studies of the friction between an adsorbed monolayer film and a metallic substrate, the films are observed to slide relative to the substrate under inertial forces of order $10^{-14}dyn$ per film atom,…
Intentionally deposited thin films exposed to atmosphere often develop unintentionally deposited few monolayer films of surface contamination. This contamination arises from the diverse population of volatile organics and inorganics in the…
We report on the delamination of thin ($\approx \mu$m) hydrogel films grafted to silicon substrates under the action of swelling stresses. Poly(dimetylacrylamide) (PDMA) films are synthesized by simultaneously cross-linking and grafting…
Competition between electronic and atomic reconstruction is a constantly recurring theme in transition-metal oxides. We use density functional theory calculations to study this competition for a model system consisting of a thin film of the…
We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of the buckling of a thin film wrapped around a sphere under the action of capillary forces. A rigid sphere is coated with a wetting liquid, and then wrapped by a thin film into an…
We investigate the sliding dynamics of a millimeter-sized particle trapped in a horizontal soap film. Once released, the particle moves toward the center of the film in damped oscillations. We study experimentally and model the forces…
For partially wetting fluids, previous results suggest that the thickness and the dewetting velocity of gravity driven films are uniquely determined by the triple line dynamics. In contrast, when flushing aqueous liquids through polymer…
Everyday experience confirms the tendency of adhesive films to detach from spheroidal regions of rigid substrates -- what is a petty frustration when placing a sticky bandage onto an elbow or knee is a more serious matter in the coating and…
We experimentally study the formation of surface patterns in grafted hydrogel films of nanometer-to-micrometer thicknesses during imbibition-driven swelling followed by evaporation-driven shrinking. Creases are known to form at the hydrogel…
In recent years, there has been a considerable interest in the mechanics of soft objects meeting fluid interfaces (elasto-capillary interactions). In this work we experimentally examine the case of a fluid resting on a thin film of rigid…
In recent years, slippery surfaces have attracted significant interest due to their excellent liquid-repellent properties and their potential in diverse commercial applications. Such surfaces are prepared by coating functionalized solid…
We study the effect of film density on the uniaxial compression of thin elastic films at a liquid--fluid interface. Using a combination of experiments and theory, we show that dense films first wrinkle and then fold as the compression is…
In capillary-driven fluid dynamics, simple departures from equilibrium offer the chance to quantitatively model the resulting relaxations. These dynamics in turn provide insight on both practical and fundamental aspects of thin-film…
Hydrodynamic slippage plays a crucial role in the flow dynamics of thin polymer films, as recently shown by the analysis of the profiles of liquid fronts. For long-chained polymer films it was reported that a deviation from a symmetric…
Dewetting of ultrathin (< 100 nm) polymer films, by heating above the glass transition, produces droplets of sizes of the order of microns and mean separations between droplets of the order of tens of microns. These relatively large length…
The successful commercialization of flexible spintronic devices requires a complete understanding of the impact of external strain on the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of a system. The impact of bending-induced strain on…
Amorphous sputtered Co-based thin films are widely used as soft magnetic materials in applications such as sensors, inductors and magnetic flux concentrators. The magnetic properties of these films can be controlled by deposition parameters…
We investigate the question of stability of a solid thin film which experiences external interactions such as van der Waals forces from a contacting surface or forces from an external electric field. Both perfectly elastic and viscoelastic…