Just another WordPress site - Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Spreading of nano-droplets is an interesting and technologically relevant phenomenon, where thermal fluctuations lead to unexpected deviations from well-known deterministic laws. Here, we apply the newly developed fluctuating nonideal lattice Boltzmann (LB) method [M. Gross, M. E. Cates, F. Varnik and R. Adhikari, J. Stat. Mech.2011, P03030 (2011)] for the study of this issue. Confirming the predictions of Davidovich and coworkers [Phys. Rev. Lett.95, 244905 (2005)], we provide the first independent evidence for the existence of an asymptotic, self-similar noise-driven spreading regime in both two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) geometry. The cross over from the deterministic Tanner's law, where the drop's base radius b grows (in 3D) with time as b ~ t1/10 and the noise dominated regime, where b ~ t1/6 is also observed by tuning the strength of thermal noise.