Related papers: Elastocapillary bending of microfibers around liqu…

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…

From microfluidics to fog-harvesting applications, tiny droplets are transported along various solid substrates including hairs, threads, grooves, and other light structures. Driven by gravity, a droplet sliding along a vertical fiber is a…

We report an experimental investigation of the spontaneous motion of liquid droplets on soft gels with a crosslinking gradient. By systematically adjusting the spatial difference in crosslinking density, we observed that millimeter-sized…

Evaporating droplets of polymer or colloid solution may produce a glassy crust at the liquid-vapour interface, which subsequently deforms as an elastic shell. For sessile droplets, the known radial outward flow of solvent is expected to…

We examine the shape of droplets atop deformable thin elastomeric films prepared with an anisotropic tension. As the droplets generate a deformation in the taut film through capillary forces, they assume a shape that is elongated along the…

The behavior of a microdrop of dielectric liquid suspended in a magnetic fluid and exposed to the action of electric and magnetic fields is studied experimentally. With increasing electric field, the deformation of droplets into oblate…

The motion of a water droplet on a single vertical sugar fiber is analyzed. The fiber is positioned vertically, with the droplet placed at its pending end. If the capillary force exceeds the weight of the droplet, the droplet remains…

We propose an approach to measure surface elastic constants of soft solids. Generally, this requires one to probe interfacial mechanics at around the elastocapillary length scale, which is typically microscopic. Deformations of microscopic…

Noneqiuilibrium dynamics of rotating droplets are studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Small deviations from the theoretical prediction are observed when the size of a droplet is small, and the deviations become smaller as the size of…

Many microorganisms propel through complex media by deformations of their flagella. The beat is thought to emerge from interactions between forces of the surrounding fluid, passive elastic response from deformations of the flagellum, and…

Plants and insects use slender conical structures to transport and collect small droplets, which are propelled along the conical structures due to capillary action. These droplets can deposit a fluid film during their motion, but despite…

A fundamental question in the physics of droplet--fiber interactions is: What is the maximum droplet volume a fiber can retain? While this problem has been studied for horizontal fibers and at the apex $\Lambda$-shaped bent fibers, it…

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…

When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size,…

Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…

If a droplet is placed on a substrate with a conical shape it spontaneously starts to spread in the direction of a growing fibre radius. We describe this capillary spreading dynamics by developing a lubrication approximation on a cone and…

This paper deals with flow-induced shape transitions of elastic capsules. The state of the art concerning both theory and experiments is briefly reviewed starting with dynamically induced small deformation of initially spherical capsules…

Liquid droplets usually wet smooth and homogeneous substrates isotropically. Recent research works have revealed that droplets sit, slide and spread anisotropically on uniaxially stretched soft substrates, showing an enhanced wettability…

We study experimentally the motion of non-deformable microbeads in a linear shear flow close to a wall bearing a thin and soft polymer layer. Combining microfluidics and 3D optical tracking, we demonstrate that the steady-state bead/surface…

Motivated by recent experimental observations of capillary-induced spooling of fibers inside droplets both in spider capture silk and in synthetic systems, we investigate the behavior of a fiber packed in a drop. Using a simplified 2D…