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@article{Rahman:2024:10.1038/s42005-024-01745-z,
author = {Rahman, M and Shen, L and Ewen, J and Heyes, D and Dini, D and Smith, E},
doi = {10.1038/s42005-024-01745-z},
journal = {Communications Physics},
title = {Life and death of a thin liquid film},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42005-024-01745-z},
volume = {7},
year = {2024}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - Thin films, bubbles and membranes are central to numerous natural and engineering processes, i.e., in solar cells, coatings, biosensors, foams, and emulsions. Yet, the characterization and understanding of their rupture is limited by the scarcity of atomic detail. We present here the complete life-cycle of freely suspended films using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of a simple atomic fluid free of surfactants and surface impurities, thus isolating the fundamental rupture mechanisms. We identified a short-term ‘memory’ by rewinding in time from a rupture event, extracting deterministic behaviors from apparent stochasticity. A comprehensive investigation of the key rupture-stages including both unrestrained and frustrated propagation is made—characterization of the latter leads to a first-order correction to the classical film-retraction theory. The highly resolved time window reveals that the different modes of the morphological development, typically characterized as nucleation and spinodal rupture, continuously evolve seamlessly with time from one into the other.
AU - Rahman,M
AU - Shen,L
AU - Ewen,J
AU - Heyes,D
AU - Dini,D
AU - Smith,E
DO - 10.1038/s42005-024-01745-z
PY - 2024///
SN - 2399-3650
TI - Life and death of a thin liquid film
T2 - Communications Physics
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42005-024-01745-z
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-024-01745-z
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/113080
VL - 7
ER -