Cascading rupture of oil droplets

Certain types of oil droplets display unique cyclic motions of rupture and recovery on immiscible liquid substrates. This phenomenon differs from the hole nucleation by spinodal dewetting by the critical thickness of the oil film. We demonstrate that multiple factors are required to achieve such behavior: 1) The oil must display pseudo-partial wetting on the liquid substrate, 2) Surface-active compounds must be present within the oil or substrate, and 3) Substrate-air interface must be actively created. We show that the critical thickness and number of hole nucleation events are dependent on the concentration of surface-active compounds, suggesting spatially dependent dynamic surface tension potentially playing a role in the phenomenon. Here we describe and characterize the thinning, rupture, and recovery of these oil droplets then propose a model to explain this unique behavior.