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Desorption to delamination: dynamics of detachment in a colloidal thin film
Atul Varshney1, P Sharma, A Sane
1Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400-005, India.
Abstract:
Colloidal thin films of varying rigidity detaching from a substrate under an electric field induced stress are studied by video microscopy. For soft films, the process of detachment shows single-particle dynamics, analogous to desorption. For rigid films, a collective delamination spanning hundreds of particles occurs. A competition among the rigidity of the film, the interaction with the substrate, and the external stress leads to a correlation length over which the film delaminates at a critical stress. The phenomenon is described as a dynamical transition in a disordered elastic medium.
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