Phenomenological model of crack patterns in thin colloidal films undergoing desiccation

Abstract

A number of geometric and topological properties of samples of crack-template based conductive films are examined to assess the degree to which Voronoi diagrams can successfully model structure and conductivity in such networks. Our analysis suggests that although Poisson--Voronoi diagrams are only partially successful in modeling structural features of real-world crack patterns formed in films undergoing desiccation, such diagrams can nevertheless be useful in situations where topological characteristics are more important than geometric ones. A phenomenological model is proposed that is more accurate at capturing features of the real-world crack patterns.