title: Boundary Condition in Liquid Thin Films Revealed through the Thermal Fluctuations of Their Free Surfaces.
abstract: We investigate the properties of nanometric liquid films with a new noninvasive technique. We measure the spontaneous thermal fluctuations of the free surfaces of liquids to probe their hydrodynamic boundary condition at a solid wall. The surface fluctuations of a silicon oil film could be described with a no-slip boundary condition for film thicknesses down to 20 nm. Oppositely, a 4 nm negative slip length had to be introduced to describe the behavior of n-hexadecane, consistently with previous surface force apparatus data on the same system. Our results demonstrate that at vanishing flow a nanometric solidlike layer close to the wall may exist according to the nature of the liquid.
authors.affiliation: École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) ParisTech, PSL Research University, Sciences et Ingénierie de la matière Molle, CNRS UMR7615, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.|Sorbonne-Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, SIMM, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pottier
authors.affiliation: École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) ParisTech, PSL Research University, Sciences et Ingénierie de la matière Molle, CNRS UMR7615, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.|Sorbonne-Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, SIMM, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Frétigny
authors.affiliation: École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) ParisTech, PSL Research University, Sciences et Ingénierie de la matière Molle, CNRS UMR7615, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.|Sorbonne-Universités, UPMC Université Paris 06, SIMM, 10, Rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Talini
mesh_terms: D057446:Hydrodynamics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon