Diffusion-limited growth of wetting layers

In binary liquid mixtures, the growth of wetting layers can be limited by diffusion. At complete wetting, the distance l between the interfaces bounding the layer is shown to grow as l(t)A*t for large times t where A* increases near the consolute point. In three dimensions where this growth behavior should be accessible to experiments, =18 and 110 for nonretarded and retarded van der Waals forces, respectively. The interfacial motion resulting from diffusion-limited growth is studied for general interactions, and a planar interface is found to be stable for <12.