Morphologies and kinetics of a dewetting ultrathin solid film

Hyperuniform monocrystalline structures by spinodal solid-state dewetting

Materials featuring anomalous suppression of density fluctuations over large length scales are emerging systems known as disordered hyperuniform. The underlying hidden order renders them appealing for several applications, such as light management and topologically protected electronic states. These applications require scalable fabrication, which is hard to achieve with available top-down approaches. Theoretically, it is known that spinodal decomposition can lead to disordered hyperuniform architectures. Spontaneous formation of stable patterns could thus be a viable path for the bottom-up fa…

Comparative study of a solid film dewetting in an attractive substrate potentials with the exponential and the algebraic decay

We compare dewetting characteristics of a thin nonwetting solid film in the absence of stress, for two models of a wetting potential: the exponential and the algebraic. The exponential model is a one-parameter (r) model, and the algebraic model is a two-parameter (r,m) model, where r is the ratio of the characteristic wetting length to the height of the unperturbed film, and m is the exponent of h (film height) in a smooth function that interpolates the system's surface energy above and below the film-substrate interface at z=0. The exponential model gives monotonically decreasing (with h) wet…

Investigation of pulsed laser induced dewetting in nanoscopic metal films

Hydrodynamic pattern formation (PF) and dewetting resulting from pulsed laser induced melting of nanoscopic metal films have been used to create spatially ordered metal nanoparticle arrays with monomodal size distribution on SiO_{\text{2}}/Si substrates. PF was investigated for film thickness h\leq7 nm < laser absorption depth \sim11 nm and different sets of laser parameters, including energy density E and the irradiation time, as measured by the number of pulses n. PF was only observed to occur for E\geq E_{m}, where E_{m} denotes the h-dependent threshold energy required to melt the film. Ev…

Delamination from an adhesive sphere: Curvature-induced dewetting versus buckling

Everyday experience confirms the tendency of adhesive films to detach from spheroidal regions of rigid substrates -- what is a petty frustration when placing a sticky bandage onto an elbow or knee is a more serious matter in the coating and painting industries. Irrespective of their resistance to bending, a key driver of such phenomena is Gauss' \textit{Theorema Egregium}, which implies that naturally flat sheets cannot conform to doubly-curved surfaces without developing a strain whose magnitude grows sharply with the curved area. Previous attempts to characterize the onset of curvature-induc…

Spontaneous Recovery of Superhydrophobicity on Nanotextured Surfaces

Rough or textured hydrophobic surfaces are dubbed superhydrophobic due to their numerous desirable properties, such as water repellency and interfacial slip. Superhydrophobicity stems from an aversion for water to wet the surface texture, so that a water droplet in the superhydrophobic "Cassie state", contacts only the tips of the rough hydrophobic surface. However, superhydrophobicity is remarkably fragile, and can break down due to the wetting of the surface texture to yield the "Wenzel state" under various conditions, such as elevated pressures or droplet impact. Moreover, due to large ener…

剪切作用下薄聚合物薄膜的去润湿

Dewetting of a thin polymer film under shear

本文通过有限差分法求解含毛细力和范德华力的薄液膜方程，研究剪切对超薄聚合物薄膜破裂的影响，揭示了低剪切延迟破裂、高剪切抑制破裂及中间瞬态平衡三种状态，并指出非线性效应在剪切存在时不可忽略。

Two-Dimensional Van der Waals Epitaxy Kinetics in a Three-Dimensional Perovskite Halide

The exploration of emerging materials physics and prospective applications of two-dimensional materials greatly relies on the growth control of their thickness, phases, morphologies and film-substrate interactions. Though substantial progresses have been made for the development of two-dimensional films from conventional layered bulky materials, particular challenges remain on obtaining ultrathin, single crystalline, dislocation-free films from intrinsically non-Van der Waals-type three-dimensional materials. In this report, with the successful demonstration of single crystalline ultrathin lar…

Morphologies, metastability and coarsening of quantum nanoislands on the surfaces of the annealed Ag(110) and Pb(111) thin films

Morphological evolution of heteroepitaxial nanoislands toward equilibrium (coarsening) is computed using the detailed continuum model that incorporates the quantum size effect. Results reveal the metastability of the "magic" heights, show the morphological transitions and the surface diffusion routes by which a quantum island reaches its stable height, and provide the coarsening laws for the island density and area, thus clarifying the kinetic morphology pathways in the growth of an ultrathin metal films.

Analysis of a combined influence of substrate wetting and surface electromigration on a thin film stability and dynamical morphologies

A PDE-based model combining surface electromigration and wetting is developed for the analysis of morphological stability of ultrathin solid films. Adatom mobility is assumed anisotropic, and two directions of the electric field (parallel and perpendicular to the surface) are discussed and contrasted. Linear stability analyses of small-slope evolution equations are performed, followed by computations of fully nonlinear parametric evolution equations that permit surface overhangs. The results reveal parameter domains of instability for wetting and non-wetting films and variable electric field s…

Polar morphologies from first principles: PbTiO$_3$ films on SrTiO$_3$ substrates and the $p(2 \times Λ)$ surface reconstruction

Low dimensional structures comprised of ferroelectric (FE) PbTiO$_3$ (PTO) and quantum paraelectric SrTiO$_3$ (STO) are hosts to complex polarization textures such as polar waves, flux-closure domains and polar skyrmion phases. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations can provide insight into this order, but, are limited by the computational effort needed to simulate the thousands of required atoms. To relieve this issue, we use the novel multi-site support function (MSSF) method within DFT to reduce the solution time for the electronic groundstate whilst preserving high accuracy. Using MSS…

通过一步无转移液态金属毛细管成型制备厘米级完全悬浮的金属及金属氧化物薄膜

Centimeter-scale fully suspended metal and metal oxide thin films by one-step transfer-free liquid metal capillary forming

本研究通过一步无转移液态金属毛细管成型技术，制备出厘米级、横向尺寸与厚度比达10^7量级的完全悬浮金属及金属氧化物薄膜，并实现了金属极小曲面薄壁结构快速原型制备与超高灵敏度声波检测。