  The instability, dynamics and morphological transitions of patterns in thin
liquid films on periodic striped surfaces (consisting of alternating less and
more wettable stripes) are investigated based on 3-D nonlinear simulations that
account for the inter-site hydrodynamic and surface-energetic interactions. The
film breakup is suppressed on some potentially destabilizing nonwettable sites
when their spacing is below a characteristic lengthscale of the instability,
the upper bound for which is close to the spinodal lengthscale. The thin film
pattern replicates the substrate surface energy pattern closely only when, (a)
the periodicity of substrate pattern matches closely with the characteristic
lengthscale, and (b) the stripe-width is within a range bounded by a lower
critical length, below which no heterogeneous rupture occurs, and an upper
transition length above which complex morphological features bearing little
resemblance to the substrate pattern are formed.
