Spinodal dewetting of thin films with large interfacial slip : implications from the dispersion relation

Abstract

We compare the dispersion relations for spinodally dewetting thin liquid films for increasing magnitude of interfacial slip length in the lubrication limit. While the shape of the dispersion relation, in particular the position of the maximum, are equal for no-slip up to moderate slip lengths, the position of the maximum shifts to much larger wavelengths for large slip lengths. Here, we discuss the implications of this fact for recently developed methods to assess the disjoining pressure in spinodally unstable thin films by measuring the shape of the roughness power spectrum. For PS films on OTS covered Si wafers (with slip length bapprox1,mum) we predict a 20% shift of the position of the maximum of the power spectrum which should be detectable in experiments.