Fingering Instabilities in Dewetting Nanofluids

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

Authors

E Pauliac-Vaujour

A Stannard

CP Martin

MO Blunt

I Notingher

P Moriarty

I Vancea

U Thiele

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