Dewetting of an ultrathin solid film on a lattice-matched or amorphous substrate

TL;DR

This study develops a PDE model to analyze the dewetting dynamics of ultrathin single-crystal films on various substrates, highlighting how surface energy anisotropy influences rupture and dewetting behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a new PDE framework for non-wetting film evolution considering substrate potential and anisotropy, revealing conditions for complete or partial dewetting.

Findings

Surface energy anisotropy significantly affects rupture time.

Strong anisotropy can suppress dewetting despite attractive substrate potential.

Simulation results align with theoretical predictions on dewetting behavior.

Abstract

An evolution partial differential equation for the surface of a non-wetting single-crystal film in an attractive substrate potential is derived and used to study the dynamics of a pinhole for the varying initial depth of a pinhole and the strengths of the potential and the surface energy anisotropy. The results of the simulations demonstrate how the corresponding parameters may lead to complete or partial dewetting of the film. Anisotropy of the surface energy, through faceting of the pinhole walls, is found to most drastically affect the time to film rupture. In particular, the similations support the conjecture that the strong anisotropy is capable of the complete suppression of dewetting even when the attractive substrate potential is strong.