Impact of energy dissipation on interface shapes and on rates for dewetting from liquid substrates

TL;DR

This study compares theoretical models and experimental AFM measurements to understand how energy dissipation influences interface shapes and dewetting rates in liquid-liquid systems, revealing non-universal behaviors and the importance of dissipation mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a new energetic approach to analyze energy dissipation in liquid-liquid dewetting, highlighting the non-universality of dewetting rates and detailed dissipation contributions.

Findings

Dewetting rates do not follow a universal power law.

Excellent agreement between theory and AFM experiments.

Energy dissipation mechanisms significantly influence interface dynamics.

Abstract

We revisit the fundamental problem of liquid-liquid dewetting and perform a detailed comparison of theoretical predictions based on thin-film models with experimental measurements obtained by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Specifically, we consider the dewetting of a liquid polystyrene (PS) layer from a liquid polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) layer, where the thicknesses and the viscosities of PS and PMMA layers are similar. The excellent agreement of experiment and theory reveals that dewetting rates for such systems follow no universal power law, in contrast to dewetting scenarios on solid substrates. Our new energetic approach allows to assess the physical importance of different contributions to the energy-dissipation mechanism, for which we analyze the local flow fields and the local dissipation rates.