Related papers: Capillarity of soft amorphous solids: a microscopi…
Extremely compliant elastic materials, such as thin membranes or soft gels, can be deformed when wetted by a liquid drop. It is commonly assumed that the solid capillarity in "soft wetting" can be treated in the same manner as liquid…
The surface free energy, or surface tension, of a liquid interface gives rise to a pressure jump when the interface is curved. Here we show that a similar capillary pressure arises at the interface of soft solids. We present experimental…
The capillary forces exerted by liquid drops and bubbles on a soft solid are directly measured using molecular dynamics simulations. The force on the solid by the liquid near the contact line is not oriented along the liquid vapor interface…
It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…
Even though the study of interfacial phenomena dates back to Laplace and was formalised by Gibbs, it appears that some concepts and relations among them are still causing some confusion and debates in the literature, particularly for…
All phases of matter, solid, liquid or gas, present some excess energy, compared to their bulk, at their interfaces with other materials. This excess of energy, known as the surface energy, is a fundamental property of matter and is…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
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…
The motion of an object within a viscous fluid and in the vicinity of a soft surface induces a hydrodynamic stress field that deforms the latter, thus modifying the boundary conditions of the flow. This results in elastohydrodynamic (EHD)…
The Shuttleworth equation: a linear stress-strain relation ubiquitously used in modeling the behavior of soft surfaces. Its validity in the realm of materials subject to large deformation is a topic of current debate. Here, we allow for…
The efficiency of soft particles to stabilize emulsions is examined by measuring their desorption free energy, i.e., the mechanical work required to detach the particle from a fluid interface. Here, we consider rubber-like elastic as well…
Surface stress and surface energy are fundamental quantities which characterize the interface between two materials. Although these quantities are identical for interfaces involving only fluids, the Shuttleworth effect demonstrates that…
A partially-wetting liquid can deform the underlying elastic substrate upon which it rests. This situation requires the development of theoretical models to describe the wetting forces imparted by the drop onto the solid substrate,…
The interfacial mechanics of soft elastic networks play a central role in biological and technological contexts. Yet, effects of solid capillarity have remained controversial, primarily due to the strain-dependent surface energy. Here we…
To express the capillary stress in the diffuse interface method, there are two different formulations in the literature: one formulation is proportional to the density and the other is to the density gradient. Confusingly, these two…
Soft solids differ from stiff solids in an important way: their surface stresses can drive large deformations. Based on a topical workshop held in the Lorentz Center in Leiden, this Opinion highlights some recent advances in the growing…
Using a thermodynamical approach, we calculate the deformation of a spherical elastic particle placed on a rigid substrate, under zero external load, and including an ingredient of importance in soft matter: the interfacial tension of the…
An example of capillary phenomena commonly seen and often studied is a droplet of water hanging in air from a horizontal surface. A thin capillary surface interface between the liquid and gas develops tangential surface tension, which…
The statistical mechanics of equilibrium interfaces has been well-established for over a half century. In the last decade, a wealth of observations have made increasingly clear that a new perspective is required to describe interfaces…
We analyze the surface tension exerted at the interface between an active fluid and a solid boundary in terms of tangential forces. Focusing on active systems known to possess an equation of state for the pressure, we show that interfacial…