Micro pancakes

A fundamental issue in fluid dynamics concerns how a substrate wets and dewets. Immersing a hydrophobic substrate in water can lead to the creation of micropancakes. These gassy layers are 1-2nm in height, but extend laterally for microns. Moreover, they grow in time, and can also rearrange shape. The presence of the micropancakes corresponds to a zero-wetted region on the substrate, and subsequent micropancake growth corresponds to dynamic dewetting.

Our research spans experimental, numerical, and theoretical disciplines. In particular, we are investigating:

The dynamic growth and rearrangement as a function of substrate and saturated gas types, and
the internal structure (if any) of the micropancakes.

The ultimate aims are to understand the behaviour of gas-liquid-substrate interactions at the nanoscale, as well as their connection with the formation of surface nanobubbles.

Figure 1: Example of micropancake imaged with Atomic Force Microscopy. The image is 1.4 µm wide.

Info: Detlef Lohse

Researchers: Joost Weijs, Hanneke Gelderblom, James Seddon, Siddhartha Das, Detlef Lohse, Andrea Prosperetti, Jacco Snoeijer
Collaborators: Olesya Bliznyuk, Stefan Kooij, Bene Poelsema and Harold Zandvliet (Solid State Physics, U Twente)
Embedding: MESA+, JMBC
Sponsors: FOM, EEC