Title: Impact of energy dissipation on interface shapes and on rates for dewetting from liquid substrates,
Abstract: We revisit the fundamental problem of liquid-liquid dewetting and perform a
detailed comparison of theoretical predictions based on thin-film models with
experimental measurements obtained by atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Specifically, we consider the dewetting of a liquid polystyrene (PS) layer from
a liquid polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) layer, where the thicknesses and the
viscosities of PS and PMMA layers are similar. The excellent agreement of
experiment and theory reveals that dewetting rates for such systems follow no
universal power law, in contrast to dewetting scenarios on solid substrates.
Our new energetic approach allows to assess the physical importance of
different contributions to the energy-dissipation mechanism, for which we
analyze the local flow fields and the local dissipation rates.