A set of lubrication models for the thin film flow of incompressible fluids on solid substrates is derived and studied. The models are obtained as asymptotic limits of the Navier-Stokes equations with the Navier-slip boundary condition for different orders of magnitude for the slip-length parameter. Specifically, the influence of slip on the dewetting behavior of fluids on hydrophobic substrates is investigated here. Matched asymptotics are used to describe the dynamic profiles for dewetting films and comparison is given with computational simulations. The motion of the dewetting front shows transitions from being nearly linear in time for no-slip to t 2/3 as the slip is increased. For much larger slip lengths the front motion appears to become linear again. Correspondingly, the dewetting profiles undergo a transition from oscillatory to monotone decay into the uniform film layer for large slip. Increasing the slip further, to very large values, is associated with an increasing degree of asymmetry in the structure of the dewetting ridge profile.

We compare the flow behavior of liquid polymer films on silicon wafers coated with either octadecyl-(OTS) or dodecyltrichlorosilane (DTS). Our experiments show that dewetting on DTS is significantly faster than on OTS. We argue that this is tied to the difference in the solid/liquid friction. As the film dewets, the profile of the rim advancing into the undisturbed film is monotonically decaying on DTS but has an oscillatory structure on OTS. For the first time we can describe this transition in terms of a lubrication model with a Navier-slip condition for the flow of a viscous Newtonian liquid.

To characterize nontrivial boundary conditions of a liquid flowing past a solid, the slip length is commonly used as a measure. From the profile of a retracting liquid front (e.g., measured with atomic force microscopy), the slip length can be extracted with the help of a Stokes model for a thin liquid film dewetting from a solid substrate. Specifically, we use a lubrication model derived from the Stokes model for strong slippage and linearize the film profile around the flat, unperturbed film. For small slip lengths, we expand the linearized full Stokes model for small slopes up to third order. Using the respective model, we obtain, in addition to the slip length, the capillary number, from which we can estimate the viscosity of the fluid film. We compare numerical and experimental results, test the consistency and the validity of the models/approximations, and give an easy-to-follow guide of how they can be used to analyze experiments.

We derive a novel thin-film equation for linear viscoelastic media describable by generalized Maxwell or Jeffreys models. As a first application of this equation we discuss the shape of a liquid rim near a dewetting front. Although the dynamics of the liquid is equivalent to that of a phenomenological model recently proposed by Herminghaus et al. (S. Herminghaus, R. Seemann, K. Jacobs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 056101 (2002)), the liquid rim profile in our model always shows oscillatory behaviour, contrary to that obtained in the former. This difference in behaviour is attributed to a different treatment of slip in both models.

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PACS. 83.80.Sg -Polymer melts. PACS. 47.15.gm -Thin film flows. PACS. 83.50.Lh -Slip boundary effects (interfacial and free surface flows).Abstract. -In this study, we present a novel method to assess the slip length and the viscosity of thin films of highly viscous Newtonian liquids. We quantitatively analyse dewetting fronts of low molecular weight polystyrene melts on Octadecyl-(OTS) and Dodecyltrichlorosilane (DTS) polymer brushes. Using a thin film (lubrication) model derived in the limit of large slip lengths, we can extract slip length and viscosity. We study polymer films with thicknesses between 50 nm and 230 nm and various temperatures above the glass transition. We find slip lengths from 100 nm up to 1 µm on OTS and between 300 nm and 10 µm on DTS covered silicon wafers. The slip length decreases with temperature. The obtained values for the viscosity are consistent with independent measurements.

A dewetting viscous film develops a characteristic fluid rim at its receding edge due to mass conservation. In the course of the dewetting process, the rim becomes unstable via an instability of Rayleigh-Plateau type. An important difference exists between this classic instability of a liquid column and the rim instability in a thin film as the growth of the rim is continuously fueled by the receding film. We explain how the development and macroscopic morphology of the rim instability are controlled by the slip of the film on the substrate. A single thin-film model captures quantitatively the characteristics of the complete evolution of the rim observed in the experiments.

Ultrathin polymer films on non-wettable substrates display dynamic features which have been attributed to either viscoelastic or slip effects. Here we show that in the weak- and strong-slip regime, effects of viscoelastic relaxation are either absent or essentially indistinguishable from slip effects. Strong slip modifies the fastest unstable mode in a rupturing thin film, which questions the standard approach to reconstruct the effective interface potential from dewetting experiments.