Thermal Fluctuation break-up of Surfactant-Laden Liquid Threads

Formation of droplets is a fundamental process used in many industrial applications, such as inkjet printing and drug manufacturing.

The break-up of a liquid thread is influenced by an instability dependant on surface tension. We can reduce the surface tension by adding surfactants,

which are molecules that adsorb on the interface of liquids, and thus, change the break-up dynamics.

At certain systems with ultra-low surface tension or very small length scales, thermal fluctuations on the interface are capable of creating the instability

that leads to the formation of droplets and satellite droplets. In our study, we employ simulations of a coarse-grained model to determine the characteristic

wavelength of such instabilities on liquid nanothreads with various surfactant concentrations, above and below its critical aggregation concentration.

Also, we have identified the different break-up regimes and their time-scales. We anticipate that our study contributes to the understanding of a

fundamental process in nature and paves the way for further developments in this area for relevant applications.