Thin films: wrinkling vs buckle-delamination

H. Mei, J.Y. Chung, H.-H. Yu, C.M. Stafford, and R. Huang, Buckling modes of elastic thin films on elastic substrates. Applied Physics Letters 90, 151902 (2007).

Two modes of thin film buckling are commonly observed, one with interface delamination (e.g., telephone cord blisters) and the other with no delamination (i.e., wrinkling). Which one would occur for your film?

This Letter gives a quantitative criterion for the selection of the buckling modes. An experiment with a polystyrene film on a PDMS substrate was described showing a transition of the buckling modes.