2001/11/07 by P. G. de Gennes, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Characterization and Applications of Magnetic Nanoparticles #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epje/i200101169
8 pages, 2 EPS figures. submitted to Europ. Phys. J. (E)
arxiv created 2001/11/07 · openalex publication_date 2002/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When a glassy polymer film is formed by evaporation, the region near the free surface is polymer rich and becomes glassy first, as noticed long ago by Scriven et al. We discuss the thickness of this "crust" and the time interval where it is present -before freezing of the whole film. We argue that the crust is under mechanical tension, nd should form some cracks. This may be the source of the roughness observed on the final, dry films, when the solvent vapor pressure is high (and leads to thin crusts).