Eur. Phys. J. E (2006) 20: 209-214
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2005-10128-1

Regular Article

A mesoscopic model for (de)wetting

Departament de Fisica Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, Marti i Franques 1, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

^* e-mail: smerabia@gmail.com
^** e-mail: ipagonabarraga@ub.edu

Received: 25 October 2005
Accepted: 23 May 2006
Published online: 16 June 2006

Abstract

We present a mesoscopic model for simulating the dynamics of a non-volatile liquid on a solid substrate. The wetting properties of the solid can be tuned from complete wetting to total non-wetting. This model opens the way to study the dynamics of drops and liquid thin films at mesoscopic length scales of the order of the nanometer. As particular applications, we analyze the kinetics of spreading of a liquid drop wetting a solid substrate and the dewetting of a liquid film on a hydrophobic substrate. In all these cases, very good agreement is found between simulations and theoretical predictions.