Dr. Hans Riegler "Thinning Behaviour and Morphology of Evaporating Thin Liquid Films at Solid Planar Substrates"

Thinning films of volatile liquids (liquid mixtures) at solid surfaces are ubiquitous in nature and of eminent technical importance (coatings, paints, etc.). Recently it has been shown that evaporative spin casting is an excellent tool to prepare such films under well-controlled conditions and to investigate their properties [1,2].

Thus it has been shown how solute deposition in the case of mixtures of volatile solvents and nonvolatile solutes can lead to film rupture [3]. With artificially produced active sites on the substrate surface nucleation of small solute aggregates can lead to controlled self-organized aggregate patterning [4]. It has also been demonstrated how capillarity can be used to very effectively apply binding agents to firmly fix nanoparticles at surfaces [5]. Last not least the interaction of nanoparticles embedded in ultrathin liquid films has been investigated and their location has been imaged optically [6,7].

invited by Dr. Renate Reiter