A thin liquid coating on a fibre can break up into droplets due to the Plateau–Rayleigh instability, as for instance on a spider web. Here, Haefner et al. show that the growth rate of the droplet undulations strongly depends on the fibre–liquid boundary condition and slip accelerates the instability.
- Sabrina Haefner
- Michael Benzaquen
- Kari Dalnoki-Veress