Thermal Marangoni Flow Impacts the Shape of Single Component Volatile Droplets on Thin, Completely Wetting Substrates

Abstract

Despite surface energies dictating complete wetting, it has been classically observed that volatile alkanes do not spread completely on glass substrates, and faster evaporation rates lead to higher contact angles. Here we investigate how substrate thickness influences this behavior. For sufficiently thin substrates, we find alkanes evaporate slower and display higher apparent contact angles, at odds with the typical explanations involving just evaporation, capillarity, and viscous dissipation. We derive the droplet temperature distribution and use it as part of a criteria to show that thermal Marangoni contraction plays a significant role in establishing droplet shape on thin substrates.