Agenda
Histórico

07 de maio de 2025
16h00
Auditório Prof. Sérgio Mascarenhas (IFSC-USP)

Carolina Brito
Instituto de Física
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Metastability in Wetting Phenomena (video)

When a droplet of water is placed on a surface, it can behave in different ways: it might spread out into a thin film or remain compact in a spherical shape. These distinct configurations are associated with hydrophilic and hydrophobic wetting states. Intriguingly, some surfaces exhibit metastability, where the final wetting state depends on the initial conditions—such as how the droplet is deposited—allowing for multiple metastable states to coexist.
What surface characteristics give rise to this behavior? And how can we characterize and understand the transitions between these competing wetting states? In this seminar, I will explore these questions by presenting a theoretical framework and numerical simulations that offer tools for probing the landscape of wetting phenomena.