title: Deformation of an elastic substrate by a three-phase contact line.
abstract: Young's classic analysis of the equilibrium of a three-phase contact line ignores the out-of-plane component of the liquid-vapor surface tension. While it is expected that this unresolved force is balanced by the elastic response of the solid, a definitive analysis has remained elusive because of an apparent divergence of stress at the contact line. While a number of theories have been presented to cut off the divergence, none of them have provided reasonable agreement with experimental data. We measure surface and bulk deformation of a thin elastic film near a three-phase contact line using fluorescence confocal microscopy. The out-of-plane deformation is well fit by a linear elastic theory incorporating an out-of-plane restoring force due to the surface tension of the solid substrate. This theory predicts that the deformation profile near the contact line is scale-free and independent of the substrate elastic modulus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Jerison
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Larry A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Wilen
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Dufresne