https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-026-00556-0
Research - Soft Matter
Spreading and absorption of silicone oil droplets on silicone elastomer films
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
2
Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
3
UMR CNRS Gulliver 7083, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005, Paris, France
a
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Received:
22
August
2025
Accepted:
5
January
2026
Published online:
18
March
2026
Abstract
When a liquid droplet completely wets a hard substrate, its spreading dynamics follow Tanner’s law, with the droplet radius growing as the one-tenth power of time. Here, we investigate how these dynamics change when silicone oil droplets spread on soft silicone elastomer and gel films supported by a rigid silicon substrate. While the droplets fully wet the elastomer surface, they also simultaneously swell the elastomer film. By varying the film thickness, we observe deviations from the classical power-law scaling, which we interpret in terms of changes to the effective stiffness and the absorption potential of the system. We describe the spreading behavior using a phenomenological model that accounts for both absorption and mechanical contributions..
Graphical abstract: Droplet spreading on a soft substrate
© The Author(s) 2026
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