Morphology and stability of droplets sliding on soft viscoelastic substrates

Abstract

We show that energy dissipation partition between a liquid and a solid controls the shape and stability of droplets sliding on viscoelastic gels. When both phases dissipate energy equally, droplet dynamics is similar to that on rigid solids. When the solid is the major contributor to dissipation, we observe an apparent contact angle hysteresis of viscoelastic origin. We find excellent agreement between our data and a non-linear model of the wetting of gels of our own that also indicates the presence of significant slip. Our work opens general questions on the dynamics of curved contact lines on compliant substrates.