Dewetting through nucleation

We review some fundamental aspects of nucleation processes occurring in dewetting phenomena. We elaborate on the analogy between dewetting scenarios and nucleation in bulk systems. While this analogy may be pushed quite far in a few systems, fundamental differences arise in many cases of common interest. We present a number of examples and discuss their relevance in real situations. To cite this article: S. Herminghaus, F. Brochard, C. R. Physique 7 (2006).