Instabilities of thin liquid films and drops: Supported by the NSF Grant CBET-1235710

Thin liquid films provide incredibly rich setup that is of interest to the research related to applications in a number of fields, to the research on pattern formation and instabilities, and to the research concentrated on nonlinear partial differential equations.   We have considered thin films in a number of different settings, some of which are described in more detail below, in inverse chronological order.

Instabilities of nanoscale liquid metal films (in progress)

Instabilities of hanging films

Thin films related teaching:

• Capstone Math 451H Class, Spring 2001: Pattern formation in downslope flow of completely wetting film
• Casptone Math 451H Class, Spring 2002: Hele-Shaw flow
  
• Capstone Math 451H Class, Spring 2003: Instabilities during downslope flow of partially wetting film
  
• Capstone Math 451H Class, Spring 2007: Small scale experiments with thin films and drops
  
• Capstone Math 451H Class,  Spring 2011, 2013: Instabilities of liquid crystals
  

Combinantion of teaching and research have led to an overview paper in SIAM Review 2003, and to  an undergraduate research paper in SIURO 2012.   See also here for the reasonably up-to-date list of publications on thin films.