Contact instability in adhesion and debonding of thin elastic films

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Jul 7;97(1):018303. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.018303. Epub 2006 Jul 7.

Abstract

Based on experiments and 3D simulations, we show that a soft elastic film during adhesion and debonding from a rigid flat surface undergoes morphological transitions to pillars, labyrinths, and cavities, all of which have the same lateral pattern length scale, lambda close to lambda/H approximately 3 for thick films, H > 1 microm . The linear stability analysis and experiments show a new thin film regime where lambda/H approximately equal to 3 + 2pi(lambda/3 muH)1/4 (gamma is surface tension, mu is shear modulus) because of a significant surface energy penalty (for example, lambda/H approximately equal to 6 for H = 200 nm; mu = 1 MPa).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adhesiveness
  • Binding Sites
  • Computer Simulation
  • Dimethylpolysiloxanes / chemistry*
  • Elasticity
  • Membrane Fluidity*
  • Membranes, Artificial*
  • Models, Chemical*
  • Models, Molecular*
  • Silicones / chemistry*
  • Stress, Mechanical
  • Surface Properties

Substances

  • Dimethylpolysiloxanes
  • Membranes, Artificial
  • Silicones
  • baysilon