Related papers: Soft Lithography using Nectar Droplets
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
Water droplets are a perspective highly abundant phase-change material to realize tunable optical lenses. We demonstrated for the first time that freezing mesoscale water droplet could be use as tunable optical lens, such that freezing…
A novel method for single-step, lithography-free, and large-scale laser writing of nanoparticle-based plasmonic structures has been developed. Changing energy of femtosecond laser pulses and thickness of irradiated gold film it is possible…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…
The diffractive nature of light has limited optics and photonics to operate at scales much larger than the wavelength of light. The major challenge in scaling-down integrated photonics is how to mold the light flow below diffraction-limit…
Optical images of transparent three-dimensional objects can be different from a replica of the object's cross section in the image plane due to refraction at the surface or in the body of the object. Simulations of the object's image are…
A droplet can deform a soft substrate due to capillary forces when they are in contact. We study the static deformation of a soft solid layer coated on a rigid cylindrical fiber when an axisymmetric barrel-shaped droplet is embracing it. We…
Self-assembly of soft materials attracts keen interest for patterning applications owing to its ease and spontaneous behavior. We report the fabrication of nanogrooves using sublimation and recondensation of liquid crystal (LC) materials.…
Additive manufacturing is enabling soft robots with increasingly complex geometries, creating a demand for sensing solutions that remain compatible with single-material, one-step fabrication. Optical soft sensors are attractive for…
A liquid droplet is fragmented by a sudden pressurized-gas blow, and the resulting droplets, adhered to the window of a flatbed scanner, are counted and sized by computerized means. The use of a scanner plus image recognition software…
We introduce a novel technique to produce monodisperse droplets through the snap-off mechanism. The methodology is simple, versatile, and requires no specialized or expensive components. The droplets produced have polydispersity <1% and can…
The conventional manufacturing of ophthalmic lenses is an inefficient subtractive process where up to 97% of the material is discarded through grinding, polishing, and edging. Fluidic Shaping has emerged as a powerful alternative, utilizing…
We propose a theoretical framework to predict the three-dimensional shapes of optically deformed micron-sized emulsion droplets with ultra-low interfacial tension. The resulting shape and size of the droplet arises out of a balance between…
3D printing enables the fabrication of complex architectures by automating long sequences of additive steps. The increasing sophistication of printers, materials, and generative design promises to make geometric complexity a non-issue in…
Electron tomography has become a commonly used tool to investigate the three-dimensional (3D) structure of nanomaterials, including colloidal nanoparticle assemblies. However, electron microscopy is typically carried out under high vacuum…
Although realizing wetting transitions of droplets spontaneously on solid rough surfaces is quite challenging, it is becoming a key research topic in many practical applications which require highly efficient removal of liquid. We report…
Moving towards significantly smaller nanostructures, direct structuring techniques such as electron beam lithography approach fundamental limitations in feature size and aspect ratios. Application of nanostructures like diffractive X-ray…
Topological photonics harnesses the physics of topological insulators to control the behavior of light. Photonic modes robust against material imperfections are an example of such control. In this work, we propose a soft-matter platform…
Glass-forming liquids have been extensively studied in recent decades, but there is still no theory that fully describes these systems, and the diversity of treatments is in itself a barrier to understanding. Here we introduce a new simple…
A rectangular grid formed by liquid filaments on a partially wetting substrate evolves in a series of breakups leading to arrays of drops with different shapes distributed in a rather regular bidimensional pattern. Our study is focused on…