Scale-Separated Collective Bubble Nucleation and Departure

Abstract

Nucleation is classically treated as a local process, yet whether coupling between neighboring sites governs activation and stability remains unexplored. Here we show bubble nucleation is fundamentally collective: sites separated by the hydrodynamic-boundary-layer scale activate more readily and resist deactivation under changing thermal loads, consistent with a non-local hydrodynamic shielding mechanism, whereby neighboring bubbles slow the intervening flow, suppress convective heat removal, and stabilize vapor embryos. Using surfaces with two independently tunable length scales, we isolate this near-wall coupling from a second collective process, coalescence between departing bubble clusters, which transitions through isolated, promotive, and excessive regimes as the departure diameter grows with heat flux. The dominant length scale thus shifts with operating conditions, from boundary-layer coupling near activation to departure-scale coupling once nucleation is established. These results establish a scale-dependent framework for collective nucleation and departure, broadly related to phase change processes on structured surfaces.