English

Surface bubble nucleation phase space

Fluid Dynamics 2011-09-09 v1 Soft Condensed Matter

Abstract

Recent research has revealed several different techniques for nanoscopic gas nucleation on submerged surfaces, with findings seemingly in contradiction with each other. In response to this, we have systematically investigated the occurrence of surface nanobubbles on a hydrophobised silicon substrate for various different liquid temperatures and gas concentrations, which we controlled independently. We found that nanobubbles occupy a distinct region of this phase space, occurring for gas concentrations of approximately 100-110%. Below the nanobubble phase we did not detect any gaseous formations on the substrate, whereas micropancakes (micron wide, nanometer high gaseous domains) were found at higher temperatures and gas concentrations. We moreover find that supersaturation of dissolved gases is not a requirement for nucleation of bubbles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.1786,
  title  = {Surface bubble nucleation phase space},
  author = {James R. T. Seddon and E. Stefan Kooij and Bene Poelsema and Harold J. W. Zandvliet and Detlef Lohse},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.1786},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:40:30.106Z