Energy of a Drop Required to Break a Liquid Film.

An external disturbance can destabilize and break a liquid film on a nonwettable surface. Previous studies focused on evaluating critical film thickness for a spontaneous breakup, but the required energy has been unknown. We experimentally found that the energy of a drop to break a liquid film is an order of magnitude more than that predicted by a free energy balance. Here, we show how to evaluate the energy needed to rupture a liquid film by considering the formation of a crater with a critical size.