Fingering Instabilities in Dewetting Nanofluids

Pauliac-Vaujour, E; Stannard, A; Martin, CP; Blunt, MO; Notingher, I; Moriarty, P; Vancea, I; Thiele, U

Abstract

The growth of fingering patterns in dewetting nanofluids (colloidal solutions of thiol-passivated gold nanoparticles) has been followed in real time using contrast-enhanced video microscopy. The fingering instability on which we focus here arises from evaporatively-driven nucleation and growth
a nanoscopically thin "precursor" solvent film behind the macroscopic contact line. We find that well-developed isotropic fingering structures only form for a narrow range of experimental parameters. Numerical simulations, based on a modification of the Monte Carlo approach introduced by Rabani et al. [Nature 426, 271 (2003)], reproduce the patterns we observe experimentally.

Citation

Pauliac-Vaujour, E., Stannard, A., Martin, C., Blunt, M., Notingher, I., Moriarty, P., …Thiele, U. (2008). Fingering Instabilities in Dewetting Nanofluids. Physical Review Letters, 100,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: May 2, 2008
• Deposit Date: May 19, 2008
• Publicly Available Date: May 19, 2008
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 100
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/704757
• Publisher URL: http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRLTAO000100000017176102000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
• Related Public URLs: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/research/nano/publications.htm