Capillary levelling of immiscible bilayer films

Abstract

This is a ‘sandwich thesis’ consisting of a publication that I contributed to during my M.Sc. work. The thesis begins with an introduction section in Chapter 1 that discusses the relevant physical concepts to the work performed in the publication. These topics include, polymers in section 1.1, fluid dynamics in section 1.2, and capillary effects in section 1.3. Chapter 2 contains an experimental technique section that maps out the experiments performed in the manuscript. The manuscript, Chapter 3, details the capillary driven levelling of thin polymer step that is supported by an immiscible polymer film and the dissipation of the capillary energy of the system. We find that the dissipation mechanism depends strongly on the viscosity ratio between the top and the bottom films. We developed a model of the energy dissipation that agrees well with the experimental results.