Sliding fluids: Dewetting experiments reveal the solid/liquid boundary condition

Nanoscale liquid polymer films are ideal candidates to probe the solid/liquid boundary condition: Prepared on hydrophobized Si wafer, the films are not stable, they dewet. The dewetting induces a flow without applying an external force. Probing the dynamics of the dewetting film and the morphology of the liquid front, we can deduce the slip length. A variation of the type of hydrophobic coating (silane or Teflon®) of the Si wafer enables us to tune the boundary condition from a no-slip to a nearly full-slip condition. For a short introduction to the topic, we offer a phenomenological approach and supply multimedia files