ABSTRACT
The problem of stability and spontaneous pattern formation in thin (—100 nm) fluid films is central to a host of technological applications (e.g., polymeric and metal coatings, foams, emulsions, flotation) and to a diversity of physical and biological thin-film phenomena (e.g., wetting, adhesion, heterogeneous nucleation, colloids, membrane morphology, dry-eye syndrome). Study of thin films is also of fundamental scientific importance in understanding the influence of interfaces on such classical “ bulk” phenomena as diffusion, phase separation, and phase change.
