  When a liquid film lies on a non-wettable substrate, the configuration is
unstable and the film then retracts from a solid substrate to form droplets.
This phenomenon, known as dewetting, commonly leads to undesirable
morphological changes. Nevertheless, recent works have demonstrated the
possibility to harness dewetting by employing templated substrates with a
degree of precision on par with advanced lithographic processes for
high-performance nanophotonic applications. Since resonant behavior is highly
sensitive to geometrical changes, predicting quantitatively dewetting dynamics
is of high interest. In this work, we develop a continuum model that predicts
the evolution of a thin film on a patterned substrate, from the initial reflow
to the nucleation and growth of holes. We provide an operative framework based
on macroscopic measurements to model the intermolecular interactions at the
origin of the dewetting process, involving length scales that span from
sub-nanometer to micron range. A comparison of experimental and simulated
results shows that the model can accurately predict the final distributions,
thereby offering novel predictive tools to tailor the optical response of
dewetted nanostructures.
