DYNAMIC SCALING OF WETTING LAYER GROWTH

We have studied the growth of a wetting layer at the surface of a critical mixture of hexadecane and acetone from a quiescent bulk phase. The wetting layer exhibits universal dynamic scaling behavior as a function of t/t(D), where t(D) is the characteristic diffusion time. The thickness increases linearly with time and the time to reach equilibrium is 10(8)t(D). We propose a simple model which qualitatively explains this behavior.