This book is a treatise on the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of
thin liquid films at solid surfaces and, in particular, their rupture
instabilities. For the quantitative study of these phenomena, polymer
thin films (sometimes referred to as "ultrathin") have proven to be an
invaluable experimental model system.
What is it that makes thin film instabilities special and interesting?
First, thin polymeric films have an important range of applications. An
understanding of their instabilities is therefore of practical relevance
for the design of such films. The first chapter of the book intends to
give a snapshot of current applications, and an outlook on promising
future ones. Second, thin liquid films are an interdisciplinary research
topic, which leads to a fairly heterogeneous community working on the
topic. It justifies attempting to write a text which gives a coherent
presentation of the field which researchers across their specialized
communities might be interested in. Finally, thin liquid films are an
interesting laboratory for a theorist to confront a well-established
theory, hydrodynamics, with its limits. Thin films are therefore a field
in which a highly fruitful exchange and collaboration exists between
experimentalists and theorists.
The book stretches from the more concrete to more abstract levels of
study: we roughly progress from applications via theory and experiment
to rigorous mathematical theory. For an experimental scientist, the book
should serve as a reference and guide to what is the current consensus
of the theoretical underpinnings of the field of thin film dynamics.
Controversial problems on which such a consensus has not yet been
reached are clearly indicated in the text, as well as discussed in a
final chapter. From a theoretical point of view, the field of dewetting
has mainly been treated in a mathematically 'light' yet elegant fashion,
often making use of scaling arguments. For the untrained researcher,
this approach is not always easy to follow. The present book attempts to
bridge between the 'light' and the 'rigorous', always with the ambition
to enhance insight and understanding - and to not let go the elegance of
the theory.
