Spinodal Dewetting in Liquid Crystal and Liquid Metal Films

Titelangaben

Herminghaus, Stephan ; Jacobs, Karin ; Mecke, Klaus ; Bischof, Jörg ; Fery, Andreas ; Ibn-Elhaj, Mohammed ; Schlagowski, Stefan:
Spinodal Dewetting in Liquid Crystal and Liquid Metal Films.
In: Science. Bd. 282 (1998) Heft 5390 . - S. 916-919.
ISSN 1095-9203
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.282.5390.916

Volltext

Link zum Volltext (externe URL):

Abstract

Theory predicts that dewetting of a homogeneous liquid film from a solid surface may proceed via unstable surface waves on the liquid. This phenom- enon, usually termed spinodal dewetting, has been sought after in many sys- tems. Observations in liquid crystal and liquid metal films showed that, as expected, the emerging structures were similar to those found for spinodal decomposition in mixtures. Certain differences, however, could be attributed to peculiarities of the wetting forces in these two dissimilar systems, thereby demonstrating the role of nonlinearities inherent in the wetting forces.