Related papers: Elasto-capillary meniscus: Pulling out a soft stri…
A variety of complex fluids consist in soft, round objects (foams, emulsions, assemblies of copolymer micelles or of multilamellar vesicles -- also known as onions). Their dense packing induces a slight deviation from their prefered…
We study the phase equilibria of a fluid confined in an open capillary slit formed when a wall of finite length $H$ is brought a distance $L$ away from a second macroscopic surface. This system shows rich phase equilibria arising from the…
Solid interfaces have intrinsic elasticity. However, in most experiments, this is obscured by bulk stresses. Through microscopic observations of the contact-line geometry of a partially wetting droplet on an anisotropically stretched…
Sessile hydrogel drops on rigid surfaces exhibit wetting/contact morphology intermediate between liquid drops and glass spheres. Using density functional theory, we reveal the contact forces acting between a hydrogel and a rigid glass…
We calculate the meniscus location in tapered capillaries under the influence of pressure difference and dielectrophoretic forces with and without gravity. We find that the meniscus location can be a discontinuous function of the pressure…
Tactile sensation is essential for humans to recognize objects. Various devices have been developed in the past for tactile presentation by electrostatic force, which are easy to configure devices, but there is currently no such device that…
Surface roughness emerges naturally during mechanical removal of material, fracture, chemical deposition, plastic deformation, indentation, and other processes. Here, we use continuum simulations to show how roughness which is neither…
We study the interaction of two parallel rigid cylinders on the surface of a thin elastic film supported on a pool of liquid. The excess energy of the surface due to the curvature of the stretched film induces attraction of the cylinders…
A deterministic theory describing the melting of an ultrathin lubricant film between two atomically smooth solid surfaces has been developed. The lubricant state is described by introducing a parameter of excess volume that arises owing to…
Conventionally, a microscopic particle that performs a reciprocal stroke cannot move through its environment. This is because at small scales, the response of simple Newtonian fluids is purely viscous and flows are time-reversible. We show…
Recent progress in approaches to determine the elastic constants of solids starting from the microscopic particle interactions is reviewed. On the theoretical side, density functional theory approaches are discussed and compared to more…
We study the fluid squeeze-out from the interface between an elastic solid with a flat surface and a rigid solid with a randomly rough surface. As an application we discuss fluid squeeze-out between a tire tread block and a road surface.…
Lubrication forces depend to a high degree on elasticity, texture, charge, chemistry, and temperature of the interacting surfaces. Therefore, by appropriately designing surface properties, we may tailor lubrication forces to reduce…
Snapping mechanisms are investigated for an elastic strip with ends imposed to move and rotate in time. Attacking the problem analytically via Euler's elastica and the second variation of the total potential energy, the number of stable…
When a liquid droplet is located above a super-hydrophobic surface, it only barely touches the solid portion of the surface, and therefore slides very easily on it. More generally, super-hydrophobic surfaces have been shown to lead to…
We calculate the normal capillary retention force that anchors a drop to a solid surface in the direction perpendicular to the surface, and study the relationship between such force and the Young-Dupre work of adhesion. We also calculate…
We study the adsorption of simple fluids at smoothly structured, completely wet, walls and show that a meniscus osculation transition occurs when the Laplace and geometrical radii of curvature of locally parabolic regions coincide.…
Evaporative lithography in cells of arbitrary configuration allows for the creation of diverse particle deposition patterns due to the formation of a specific flow structure in the liquid caused by non-uniform evaporation. The latter in…
We use experiments to study the dynamics of the healing of a blister, a localized bump in a thin elastic layer that is adhered to a soft substrate everywhere except at the bump. We create a blister by gently placing a glass cover slip on a…
Sliding friction across a thin soft lubricant film typically occurs by stick-slip, the lubricant fully solidifying at stick, yielding and flowing at slip. The static friction force per unit area preceding slip is known from molecular…