Newton black films as wetting systems.

Newton black films (NBFs) can appear under a wide range of experimental conditions. NBFs define the adhesive states of foams and emulsions, showing their formation is a very general physical phenomenon. We show that the existence of NBFs and their whole experimental behavior can be understood within the theory of wetting transitions. NBFs are experimental realizations of partial wetting or pre-wetting states. Hence, they provide experimental systems to investigate the pre-wetting transition, and the spreading behavior under conditions that are very difficult to realize in other experimental systems. We also introduce two new computational approaches to obtain the disjoining pressure isotherm from canonical simulations, and to estimate the contact angles of droplets of naaoscopic dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]