Under-liquid Self-Assembly of Submerged Buoyant Polymer Particles
Abstract
The self-assembly of submerged cold-plasma-treated polyethylene beads is reported. The plasma-treated immersed millimetrically-sized polyethylene beads formed well-ordered 2D quasi-crystalline structures. The submerged floating of light polyethylene beads is possible due to the energy gain achieved by the wetting of the high-energy plasma-treated polymer surface prevailing over the energy loss due to the upward climb of the liquid over the beads. The capillary immersion attraction force is responsible for the observed self-assembly. The observed 2D quasi-crystalline structures demonstrate dislocations and point defects. Mechanical vibration of self-assembled rafts built of polyethylene beads leads to the healing of point defects. The immersion capillary lateral force governs the self-assembly, whereas the elastic force is responsible for the repulsion of polymer beads.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1710.09129,
title = {Under-liquid Self-Assembly of Submerged Buoyant Polymer Particles},
author = {Victor Multanen and Roman Pogreb and Yelena Bormashenko and Evgeny Shulzinger and Gene Whyman and Mark Frenkel and Edward Bormashenko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.09129},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
21 pages, 10 figures