Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Film Control to Study Contributions of Waves to Droplet Impact Dynamics on Thin Flowing Liquid Films
Published on: August 18, 2018
Entanglement effects in capillary waves on liquid polymer films
Zhang Jiang1, Mrinmay K Mukhopadhyay, Sanghoon Song
1Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
Abstract:
Overdamped surface capillary wave relaxations on molten polymer films were measured using x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. We found a transition from a single through a stretched to another single exponential regime as the temperature is decreased from well above to near the bulk glass transition temperature. A universal scaling of the dynamics was discovered over a wide range of film thicknesses, temperatures, and molecular weights (except in the multiple relaxation regime). These observations are justified by hydrodynamic theory and the time-temperature superposition principle by considering an effective viscosity instead of the bulk zero shear viscosity.
Related Concept Videos
Rise of Liquid in a Capillary Tube
Capillarity in Fluid
Surface tension is crucial to capillarity. It results from cohesive forces between liquid molecules at the liquid-air boundary, forming a skin that resists external forces. When the capillary tube...
Surface Tension of Fluid
Surface tension varies with...
Surface Tension, Capillary Action, and Viscosity
The various IMFs between identical molecules of a substance are examples of cohesive forces. The molecules within a liquid are surrounded by other molecules and are attracted equally in all directions by the cohesive forces within the liquid. However, the molecules on the surface of a liquid are attracted only by about one-half as many molecules. Because of the unbalanced molecular attractions on the surface molecules, liquids contract to form a shape that minimizes the number...

