Employing Instabilities in Large Area Thin-Film Coating with Complex Fluids

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Evgeny Gurevich; Professor Dr. Uwe Thiele
• Subject Area: Coating and Surface Technology ; Statistical Physics, Nonlinear Dynamics, Complex Systems, Soft and Fluid Matter, Biological Physics
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 396768855

• Final Report Year: 2022

Final Report Abstract

The main aim of the project was to establish the morphological phase diagrams for structures created in coating processes and to understand the underlying instability mechanisms. These instabilities fundamentally limit rapid industrial uniform thin-film coating processes as, for example dip coating, blade coating and slot-die coating techniques. To achieve this aim thin-film models have been developed and analyzed by time-simulation and path-continuation techniques for one- and two-dimensional substrates. The advance of the underlying techniques, in particular, pathcontinuation for two-dimensional systems and time-periodic states, i.e., for the deposition of regular patterns has also be achieved.

Publications

• Self-organised dip-coating patterns of simple, partially wetting, nonvolatile liquids. Phys. Rev. Fluids, 4:123903, 2019
  W. Tewes, M. Wilczek, S. V. Gurevich, and U. Thiele
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.4.123903)
• Two-dimensional patterns in dip coating - first steps on the continuation path. Phys. D, 409:132485, 2020
  P.-M. T. Ly, K. D. J. Mitas, U. Thiele, and S. V. Gurevich
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2020.132485)
• Bifurcation study for a surface-acoustic-wave-driven meniscus. Physical Review Fluids, 6(9):094002, 2021
  K. D. J. Mitas, O. Manor, and U. Thiele
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.6.094002)
• Pattern formation in slot-die coating, 2021
  M. Kasischke, S. Hartmann, K. Niermann, D. Kostyrin, U. Thiele, and E. L. Gurevich
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2101.01614)