Thermocapillary deformation of a water layer at local heating

Abstract

A horizontal water layer of 0.29-0.44 mm thickness, locally heated from the substrate, is investigated. The value of thermocapillary deformation occurring at local heating is measured by an inverted laser scanning confocal microscope Zeiss LSM 510 Meta. The heater in the form of strip of 0.5-mm width, 40-mm length, and 0.5-mm height made of indium oxide is sputtered on a sapphire substrate. The water temperature from the side of the substrate is measured using the infrared scanner Titanium 570M. We studied in detail the effect of the initial layer thickness and heating power on the value of thermocapillary deformation and temperature field. It is shown that deformation increases with an increase in thermal capacity and decrease in the layer thickness. Results of numerical simulation are in good qualitative agreement with the measurement results.