Related papers: Corners in soft solids behave as defects in crysta…
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…
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 functionality of soft interfaces is crucial to many applications in biology and surface science. Recent studies have used liquid drops to probe the surface mechanics of elastomeric networks. Experiments suggest an intricate surface…
The elastic deformation of a soft solid induced by capillary forces crucially relies on the excess stress inside the solid-liquid interface. While for a liquid-liquid interface this "surface stress" is strictly identical to the "surface…
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…
The wetting of soft polymer substrates brings in multiple complexities as compared to the wetting on rigid substrates. The contact angle of the liquid is no longer governed by Young's law, but is affected by the substrate's bulk and surface…
The surface energy is one of the fundamental properties nuclei, appearing in the simplest form of the semi-empirical mass formula. The surface enery has an influence on e.g. the shape of a nucleus and its ability to deform. This in turn…
The variation of energies associated with soft matter interfaces where surface inhomogeneities are present. These energies include the total bending and splay energy, the variable surface tension energy, a coupling energy between the total…
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…
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…
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…
This paper studies the effect of anisotropy on sharp or diffuse interfaces models. When the surface tension is a convex function of the normal to the interface, the anisotropy is said to be weak. This usually ensures the lower…
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…
Surface tension tends to minimize the area of interfaces between pieces of matter in different thermodynamic phases, be they in the solid or the liquid state. This can be relevant for the macroscopic shape of very soft solids, and lead to a…
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…
Comparison of a few simple models of fluid and solid membranes illustrates how shear stresses can arise from a bending energy through a coupling between curvature and surface stresses, a feature incidental to the fluid or solid nature of…
When a block made of an elastomer is subjected to large shear, its surface remains flat. When a block of biological soft tissue is subjected to large shear, it is likely that its surface in the plane of shear will buckle (apparition of…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…
The interplay of inertia and deformability has a substantial impact on the transport of soft particles suspended in a fluid. However, to date a thorough understanding of these systems is still missing and only a limited number of…
The Peach-Koehler force between disclination lines was originally formulated in the study of crystalline solids, and has since been adopted to provide a notion of interactions between disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals. Here, we…