Coalescence in 2 dimensions: experiments on thin copolymer films and numerical simulations

This paper presents on one hand the experimental study of the coalescence kinetics of two closed bidimensional fluid domains at the surface of a multilayered dibloc copolymer film, and on the other hand a numerical simulation of the same evolution. The latter is based on "diffusive" phenomenological equations which are surface conservative and which neglect the 2-dimensional viscosity of the layers. The successive shapes observed in the experiments and obtained from the simulation are very close. It would not be the case if the 2D viscosity was significant.