Contact-line instability of dewetting thin films

We investigate the linear stability of dewetting thin polymer films on hydrophobised substrates driven by Van-der-Waals forces, using a lubrication model. We focus on the role of slippage in the emerging instability at the three-phase contact-line and compare our results to the corresponding no-slip case. Our analysis shows that generically, small perturbations of the receding front are amplified, but in the slippage case by orders of magnitude larger than in the no-slip case. Moreover, while the perturbations become symmetrical in the no-slip case, they are asymmetrical in the slippage case. We furthermore extend our lubrication model to include effects of nonlinear curvature. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.