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    Structure formation in thin liquid-liquid films
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Bommer, Stefan; Jachalski, Sebastian; Peschka, Dirk; Seemann, Ralf; Wagner, Barbara
    We revisit the problem of a liquid polymer that dewets from another liquid polymer substrate with the focus on the direct comparison of results from mathematical modeling, rigorous analysis, numerical simulation and experimental investigations of rupture, dewetting dynamics and equilibrium patterns of a thin liquid-liquid system. The experimental system uses as a model system a thin polystyrene (PS) / polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) bilayer of a few hundred nm. The polymer systems allow for in situ observation of the dewetting process by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and for a precise ex situ imaging of the liquidliquid interface. In the present study, the molecular chain length of the used polymers is chosen such that the polymers can be considered as Newtonian liquids. However, by increasing the chain length, the rheological properties of the polymers can be also tuned to a viscoelastic flow behavior. The experimental results are compared with the predictions based on the thin film models. The system parameters like contact angle and surface tensions are determined from the experiments and used for a quantitative comparison. We obtain excellent agreement for transient drop shapes on their way towards equilibrium, as well as dewetting rim profiles and dewetting dynamics.
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    Liquid-liquid dewetting: Morphologies and rates
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2016) Bommer, Stefan; Seemann, Ralf; Jachalski, Sebastian; Peschka, Dirk; Wagner, Barbara
    The dependence of the dissipation on the local details of the flow field of a liquid polymer film dewetting from a liquid polymer substrate is shown, solving the free boundary problem for a two-layer liquid system. As a key result we show that the dewetting rates of such a liquid bi-layer system can not be described by a single power law but shows transient behaviour of the rates, changing from increasing to decreasing behaviour. The theoretical predictions on the evolution of morphology and rates of the free surfaces and free interfaces are compared to measurements of the evolution of the polystyrene(PS)-air, the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)-air and the PS-PMMA interfaces using in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM), and they show excellent agreement.
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    Impact of energy dissipation on interface shapes and on rates for dewetting from liquid substrates
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2018) Peschka, Dirk; Bommer, Stefan; Jachalski, Sebastian; Seemann, Ralf; Wagner, Barbara
    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. Specifically, we consider the dewetting of a liquid polystyrene layer from a liquid polymethyl methacrylate layer, where the thicknesses and the viscosities of both layers are similar. Using experimentally determined system parameters like viscosity and surface tension, an excellent agreement of experimentally and theoretically obtained rim profile shapes are obtained including the liquid-liquid interface and even dewetting rates. Our new energetic approach additionally 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. Using this approach, we explain why dewetting rates for liquid-liquid systems follow no universal power law, despite the fact that experimental velocities are almost constant. This is in contrast to dewetting scenarios on solid substrates and in contrast to previous results for liquid-liquid substrates using heuristic approaches.