Stability of soap films: hysteresis and nucleation of black films.
We study the stability of soap films of a nonionic surfactant under different applied capillary pressures on the film. Depending on the pressure, either a thick common black film (CBF), or a micro-scopically thin Newton black film (NBF) is formed as a (metastable) equilibrium state, with a first-order (discontinuous) transition between the two. Studying the dynamics of the CBF-NBF transition, it is found that under certain conditions a hysteresis for the transition is observed: for a given range of pressures, either of the two states may be observed. We quantify the nucleation process that is at the basis of these observations both experimentally and theoretically.
Casteletto
Valeria
V
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 Rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris, France.
Cantat
Isabelle
I
Sarker
Dipak
D
Bausch
Richard
R
Bonn
Daniel
D
Meunier
Jacques
J