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When a liquid droplet completely wets a hard substrate, its spreading dynamics follow Tanner’s law, with the droplet radius growing as the one-tenth power of time. Here, we investigate how these dynamics change when silicone oil droplets spread on soft silicone elastomer and gel films supported by a rigid silicon substrate. While the droplets fully wet the elastomer surface, they also simultaneously swell the elastomer film. By varying the film thickness, we observe deviations from the classical power-law scaling, which we interpret in terms of changes to the effective stiffness and the absorption potential of the system. We describe the spreading behavior using a phenomenological model that accounts for both absorption and mechanical contributions.
EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL E
By: Lauren Dutcher, Benjamin Baylis, John R. Dutcher, Élie Raphaël & Kari Dalnoki-Veress
Received22 August 2025
Accepted05 January 2026
Published18 March 2026
Version of record18 March 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189...