Related papers: Laser microfluidics: fluid actuation by light
The manipulation of micro- and nano-objects is of great technological significance to construct new materials, manipulate tiny amounts of liquids in fluidic systems, or detect minute concentrations of analytes. It is commonly approached by…
Rapid and sustained condensate droplet departure from a surface is key towards achieving high heat transfer rates in condensation, a physical process critical to a broad range of industrial and societal applications. Despite progress in…
We report on the onset of fluid entrainment when a contact line is forced to advance over a dry solid of arbitrary wettability. We show that entrainment occurs at a critical advancing speed beyond which the balance between capillary,…
It was recently shown theoretically that it is possible to pull a spherical dielectric body towards the source of a laser beam [Nature Photonics {\bf 5}, 531 (2011)], a result with immediate consequences to optical manipulation of small…
This article reviews recent theoretical and experimental advances in the fundamental understanding and active control of quantum fluids of light in nonlinear optical systems. In presence of effective photon-photon interactions induced by…
Along a single strand of micro-capillary optical waveguide, we achieved an efficient transfer of the light momentum onto the liquid contained there within, successfully atomizing it into nanoscale droplets. A hollow optical fiber (HOF),…
Capillary-driven transport offers a simple, self-sustained alternative to externally pumped microfluidic systems, yet achieving precise control of such flows remains challenging. We experimentally and theoretically investigate capillary…
Microfluidics involves the manipulation of flows at the microscale, typically requiring external power sources to generate pressure gradients. Alternatively, harnessing flows from active fluids, which are usually chaotic, has been proposed…
Microscopy and optical imaging are drastically limited by the inhomogeneities encountered by the light while propagating from the object of interest to the detection system. In this context, adaptive optics and wavefront manipulation are…
Spontaneous emergence of organized states in materials driven by non-equilibrium conditions is of significant fundamental and technological interest. In many cases, the organized states are complex, hence, with some well-studied exceptions,…
A phase--field method is applied to the modeling of flow and breakup of droplets in a T--shaped junction in the hydrodynamic regime where capillary and viscous stresses dominate over inertial forces, which is characteristic of microfluidic…
Light is extensively used to steer the motion of atoms in free space, enabling cooling and trapping of matter waves through ponderomotive forces and Doppler-mediated photon scattering. Likewise, light interaction with free electrons has…
We report on a new class of electromagnetically-driven fluid interface instability. Using the optical radiation pressure of a cw laser to bend a very soft near-critical liquid-liquid interface, we show that it becomes unstable for…
This research introduces a new drop fluidics, which uses a deformable and stretchable elastomeric film as the platform, instead of the commonly used rigid supports. Such a soft film impregnated with magnetic particles can be modulated with…
Dripping, jetting and tip streaming have been studied up to a certain point separately by both fluid mechanics and microfluidics communities, the former focusing on fundamental aspects while the latter on applications. Here, we intend to…
A particle placed in soft matter distorts its host and creates an energy landscape. This can occur, for example, for particles in liquid crystals, for particles on lipid bilayers or for particles trapped at fluid interfaces. Such energies…
A new experimental technique for creating and imaging collisions of micron-sized droplets settling under gravity is presented. A pair of glycerol droplets is suspended in air by means of two optical traps. The droplet relative velocities…
Underwater environments impose severe constraints on conventional imaging systems and demand solutions that balance high-quality sensing with strict resource efficiency. While emerging event cameras offer a promising alternative, their…
We demonstrate the realization of (laterally) optically bounded colloidal structures on a liquid-liquid interface of an emulsion droplet. We use DNA tethers to graft the particles to the droplet surface, effectively confining them to a…
Exploring and controlling the physical factors that determine the topography of thin liquid dielectric films are of interest in manifold fields of research in physics, applied mathematics, and engineering and have been a key aspect of many…