Regensburg 2013 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 2: Interfaces and Thin Films I (joint session with DECHEMA and VDI)

CPP 2.7: Vortrag

Montag, 11. März 2013, 11:30–11:45, H40

Interfacial roughening and breakup of thin liquid films — •Markus Gross — ICAMS, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

A fluid interface in equilibrium is characterised by the presence of thermally excited capillary waves. However, in many cases, such as in phase-separation processes under shear or in pattern-forming systems, interfaces are initially not in equilibrium and it takes a certain time during which the interfaces roughens to reach its equilibrium state. Employing an effective Langevin formalism and simulations of the full fluctuating hydrodynamic equations, we first discuss the different dynamic universality classes of fluid interfacial roughening. Besides being a theoretically interesting non-equilibrium growth phenomenon, interfacial roughness has also important repercussions on the stability of thin films or liquid domains: if the surface tension is low, interfaces fluctuate violently and a breakup of the domain can result. So far, film breakup has typically been studied assuming the dominance of disjoining pressure. Here, we focus on the purely fluctuation-dominated regime, where the breakup is a "rare event" and effects of disjoining pressure are negligible at all times except close to the breakup.