Wetting phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and technology. A solid substrate exposed to the environment is almost invariably covered by a layer of fluid material. In this review, the surface forces that lead to wetting are considered, and the equilibrium surface coverage of a substrate in contact with a drop of liquid. Depending on the nature of the surface forces involved, different scenarios for wetting phase transitions are possible; recent progress allows us to relate the critical exponents directly to the nature of the surface forces which lead to the different wetting scenarios. Thermal fluctuation effects, which can be greatly enhanced for wetting of geometrically or chemically structured substrates, and are much stronger in colloidal suspensions, modify the adsorption singularities. Macroscopic descriptions and microscopic theories have been developed to understand and predict wetting behavior relevant to microfluidics and nanofluidics applications. Then the dynamics of wetting is examined. A drop, placed on a substrate which it wets, spreads out to form a film. Conversely, a nonwetted substrate previously covered by a film dewets upon an appropriate change of system parameters. The hydrodynamics of both wetting and dewetting is influenced by the presence of the three-phase contact line separating "wet" regions from those that are either dry or covered by a microscopic film only. Recent theoretical, experimental, and numerical progress in the description of moving contact line dynamics are reviewed, and its relation to the thermodynamics of wetting is explored. In addition, recent progress on rough surfaces is surveyed. The anchoring of contact lines and contact angle hysteresis are explored resulting from surface inhomogeneities. Further, new ways to mold wetting characteristics according to technological constraints are discussed, for example, the use of patterned surfaces, surfactants, or complex fluids.

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Wetting and Spreading

Intermolecular And Surface Forces

The dynamics and stability of thin liquid films have fascinated scientists over many decades: the observations of regular wave patterns in film flows down a windowpane or along guttering, the patterning of dewetting droplets, and the fingering of viscous flows down a slope are all examples that are familiar in daily life. Thin film flows occur over a wide range of length scales and are central to numerous areas of engineering, geophysics, and biophysics; these include nanofluidics and microfluidics, coating flows, intensive processing, lava flows, dynamics of continental ice sheets, tear-film rupture, and surfactant replacement therapy. These flows have attracted considerable attention in the literature, which have resulted in many significant developments in experimental, analytical, and numerical research in this area. These include advances in understanding dewetting, thermocapillary- and surfactant-driven films, falling films and films flowing over structured, compliant, and rapidly rotating substrates, and evaporating films as well as those manipulated via use of electric fields to produce nanoscale patterns. These developments are reviewed in this paper and open problems and exciting research avenues in this thriving area of fluid mechanics are also highlighted.

Dynamics and stability of thin liquid films

Let X(t) be the number of tumor cells at time t, and Pr{X(t) = n} = pn(t) is the density of X. A “birth”, i.e., an increase of one of the total population of cancer cells, can occur either by mutation of a normal cell caused by the action of the carcinogen, consisting of randomly (Poisson) distributed hits, or by reproduction of existing cancer cells. A death of a tumor cell occurs as an additive combination of non-immunological and immunological elements. Once a tumor is initiated by carcinogenic action, it undergoes a birth and death process with infinitesimal birth rate linear and infinitesimal death rate composed of a linear and a nonlinear term, the former due to non-immunological deaths, the latter to immunological feedback. The death rate per tumor cell due to immunological response is proportional to the total number of antigen-producing (tumor) cells; thus, the total death rate is quadratic. Although this assumes a very simple mechanism for the action of immunological feedback, it is nevertheless a first step.

The Mathematical Model

The development of microfluidic devices has recently revived the interest in “old” problems associated with transport at, or across, interfaces. As the characteristic sizes are decreased, the use of pressure gradients to transport fluids becomes problematic, and new, interface driven, methods must be considered. This has lead to new investigations of flow near interfaces, and to the conception of interfaces engineered at various scales to reduce flow friction. In this review, we discuss the present theoretical understanding of flow past solid interfaces at different length scales. We also briefly discuss the corresponding phenomenon of heat transport, and the influence of surface slip on interface driven (e.g. electro-osmotic) flows.

http://ilm-perso.univ-lyon1.fr/~lbocquet/soft-matter-2007.pdf

Flow boundary conditions from nano- to micro-scales

Undercompressive shocks in thin film flows

A set of lubrication models for the thin film flow of incompressible fluids on solid substrates is derived and studied. The models are obtained as asymptotic limits of the Navier-Stokes equations with the Navier-slip boundary condition for different orders of magnitude for the slip-length parameter. Specifically, the influence of slip on the dewetting behavior of fluids on hydrophobic substrates is investigated here. Matched asymptotics are used to describe the dynamic profiles for dewetting films and comparison is given with computational simulations. The motion of the dewetting front shows transitions from being nearly linear in time for no-slip to t 2/3 as the slip is increased. For much larger slip lengths the front motion appears to become linear again. Correspondingly, the dewetting profiles undergo a transition from oscillatory to monotone decay into the uniform film layer for large slip. Increasing the slip further, to very large values, is associated with an increasing degree of asymmetry in the structure of the dewetting ridge profile.

Lubrication Models with Small to Large Slip Lengths

We compare the flow behavior of liquid polymer films on silicon wafers coated with either octadecyl-(OTS) or dodecyltrichlorosilane (DTS). Our experiments show that dewetting on DTS is significantly faster than on OTS. We argue that this is tied to the difference in the solid/liquid friction. As the film dewets, the profile of the rim advancing into the undisturbed film is monotonically decaying on DTS but has an oscillatory structure on OTS. For the first time we can describe this transition in terms of a lubrication model with a Navier-slip condition for the flow of a viscous Newtonian liquid.

https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/physik/OSMP/Soft/ws0607_ue03a.pdf

New slip regimes and the shape of dewetting thin liquid films.

We present new experimental results for films driven by a thermal gradient with an opposing gravitational force. When the gravitational effect becomes non-negligible, the advancing front produces a very large capillary ridge which shows a remarkable tendency to remain stable. This phenomenon can be explained by new mathematical results for a lubrication model of the experiment. The advancing front evolves into an “undercompressive” capillary shock structure which is stable to contact line perturbations, unlike typical capillary ridges in driven film flows. [S0031-9007(98)07868-5]

Andreas Münch

Papers

Undercompressive shocks in thin film flows

Lubrication Models with Small to Large Slip Lengths

New slip regimes and the shape of dewetting thin liquid films.

Contact line stability and undercompressive shocks in driven thin film flow

Contact Line Stability and “Undercompressive Shocks” in Driven Thin Film Flow