Capillary Leveling of Freestanding Liquid Nanofilms

Mark Ilton, Miles M. P. Couchman, Cedric Gerbelot, Michael Benzaquen, Paul D. Fowler, Howard A. Stone, Elie Raphael, Kari Dalnoki-Veress, and Thomas Salez

Physical Review Letters 117 (2016)

Abstract

We report on the capillary-driven leveling of a topographical perturbation at the surface of a freestanding liquid nanofilm. The width of a stepped surface profile is found to evolve as the square root of time. The hydrodynamic model is in excellent agreement with the experimental data. In addition to exhibiting an analogy with diffusive processes, this novel system serves as a precise nanoprobe for the rheology of liquids at interfaces in a configuration that avoids substrate effects.

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