8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

P7.2Thu 811:10-14:00Modelling approaches to the dewetting of evaporatingthin films of nanoparticle suspensions exhibiting patternformationAndrew Archer, 1 Mark Robbins, 1 Lubor Frastia, 1 and Uwe Thiele 11 Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, Leicestershire, United KingdomThin films of a suspension of nanoparticles that are spread over a flat surface may dewet under thecombined action of evaporation and capillary forces, depositing the nanoparticles on the surface.We use both a microscopic dynamical density functional theory (DDFT) based approach and amesoscopic hydrodynamic thin film model to study different aspects of the formation of patternedstructures resulting from the dewetting process. The results from the DDFT show the formation ofpolygonal networks, spinodal and branched structures resulting from the dewetting of an ultrathin’postcursor film’ that remains behind a mesoscopic dewetting front, that are in good qualitativeagreement with recent experimental results [1]. We highlight, in particular, the presence of atransverse instability in the evaporative dewetting front, which results in highly branched fingeringstructures [2]. Our hydrodynamic study focuses on the deposition of line patterns on the mesoscalethat is caused by periodic pinning-depinning cycles [3].[1] E Pauliac-Vaujour, A Stannard, C P Martin, M O Blunt, I Notingher, P J Moriarty, IVancea and U Thiele, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 176102 (2008).[2] A J Archer, M J Robbins and U Thiele, Phys. Rev. E 81, 021602 (2010).[3] L Frastia, A J Archer, U Thiele, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 077801 (2011).2