Dewetting of Liquid Filaments in Wedge-Shaped Grooves

The dewetting of liquid filaments in linear grooves of a triangular cross section is studied experimentally and theoretically. Homogeneous filaments of glassy polystyrene (PS) are prepared in triangular grooves in a nonequilibrium state. At elevated temperatures, the molten PS restores its material contact angle with the substrate. Liquid filaments with a convex liquid-vapor interface decay into isolated droplets with a characteristic spacing depending on the wedge geometry, wettability, and filament width. This instability is driven by the interplay of local filament width and Laplace pressure and constitutes a wide class of 1D instabilities that also include the Rayleigh-Plateau instability as a special case. Our results show an accurately exponential buildup of the instability, suggesting that fluctuations have a minor influence in our system.