fast evaporation [104, 105]. These complex experimental systems all represent systems of high
practical interest that the theories presented here are not (yet) able to describe. Such experiments
do, however, provide a strong motivation for further work to extend the theories presented here, as
well as to develop new approaches.
Let us ﬁnally mention that several topics were entirely excluded from our discussion here. First, we
focused on a limited range of descriptions and did, for instance, not mention lattice Boltzmann,
molecular dynamics or dissipative particle dynamics approaches that may also be employed to
describe ﬂuid suspensions [106–109]. Second, we have only discussed spatially homogeneous
substrates. Patterned substrates are widely used in dewetting experiments [38, 110–112]. Theoret-
ical descriptions are well developed for the dewetting of ﬁlms of pure non-volatile liquids on such
substrates [68, 113–119]. However, in the case of volatile liquids on heterogeneous substrates,
much less work has been done. A third topic that we did not touch upon are possible continuum
thin ﬁlm approaches to demixing dewetting suspensions. We believe it is feasible to extend the
diffuse interface theories such as model-H [120] to include the inﬂuence of evaporation in dewet-
ting nanoparticle suspensions. For instance, such models have already been adapted to describe
demixing free surface ﬁlms of polymer blends [121–123].
Acknowledgments
AJA and MJR gratefully acknowledge RCUK and EPSRC, respectively, for ﬁnancial support. We
acknowledge support by the European Union via the FP6 and FP7 Marie Curie schemes [Grants
MRTN-CT-2004005728 (PATTERNS) and PITN-GA-2008-214919 (MULTIFLOW)].
[1] G. Reiter, “Dewetting of thin polymer ﬁlms,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 75–78 (1992).
[2] G. Reiter, “Mobility of polymers in ﬁlms thinner than their unperturbed size,” Europhys. Lett. 23,
579–584 (1993).
[3] A. Sharma and G. Reiter, “Instability of thin polymer ﬁlms on coated substrates: Rupture, dewetting
and drop formation,” J. Colloid Interface Sci.178, 383–399 (1996).
[4] P.-G. de Gennes, “Wetting: Statics and dynamics,” Rev. Mod. Phys. 57, 827–863 (1985).
25