A comparative study on the speed-up dynamics of drop spreading on floating and glass-supported polystyrene thin films

The enhanced spreading of a 2D drop on a stiff and free-standing elastic thin film theoretically investigated by Shanahan (Rev. Phys. Appl. 1988, 23, 1031-1037) has not been studied and verified experimentally. To shed a light on this interesting problem, herein, we perform comparison studies on the spreading behavior of a silicone oil drop on stiff polystyrene thin films supported by two different substrates: glass vs. water. Scaling analysis on the time evolution of the contact radius for the drop spreading on the films of varied thickness (-40 nm to -600 nm) reveals the difference on the dynamics for the drop spreading on glass-supported and floating films. Upon fitting the spreading data by using the spreading model developed by de Ruijter et al. (Langmuir 1999, 15, 2209-2216), we are able to identify the speed-up effect for the drop spreading on water supported floating films, which progressively decreases with film thickness and diminishes when the thickness is greater than -200 nm. The elastic driving force that is responsible for the speed-up of the drop spreading on the floating film is evaluated empirically, which is found to decay exponentially with contact radius of the drop. The pre-factor and the decay length of the decay function are determined by film thickness and drop volume, resepctively. Our findings expect to facilitate developing new theories with practical relevance on the spreading dynamics of a liquid drop on elastic films.