Spontaneous Instability and Dewetting mediated patterning of Thin Polymer Films

"Ultra thin films tend to become unstable due to amplification of disjoining forces on a non wettable substrate, leading to its spontaneous rupture and dewetting. While such instability is undesirable in coatings, it offers a novel nano fabrication strategy. However such instability patterns are random and isotropic, and thus have limited applicability. I will first briefly discuss the basics in this area, followed by exploring possibilities of aligning these structures by laterally confining the evolution pathway on topographically patterned substrates. Further, I will introduce the novel concept of spin dewetting, where ordered morphologies form over a topographically patterned substrate during coating itself."
Reference: 
1.    N. Bhandaru, A. Das, N. Salunke and R. Mukherjee, Nano Letters 14, 7009, 2014.
2.    R. Mukherjee and A. Sharma. Soft Matter 11, 8717, 2015.