title: Growth of bubbles on a solid surface in response to a pressure reduction.
abstract: A diffusion-controlled method is presented to study the growth of bubbles on a solid surface. The bubbles are nucleated spontaneously on a hydrophobic smooth surface in response to a sudden pressure reduction and then grow with an expanding contact line. The evolution of the bubbles in the early stage is found to grow with a constant bubble radius and a decreasing contact angle, while the bubbles continue their growth with a constant contact angle and an increasing bubble radius after the contact angle reaches its equilibrium value. A total variation of about 60° of the contact angle is observed during the growth of the bubbles with the size scale of 10-100 μm in radius. The growing process is described by the diffusion theory with the validation of the growth constant.
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Haosheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Weizheng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Simeon D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Stoyanov
authors.forename: Eddie G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Pelan