Related papers: Soft wetting and the Shuttleworth effect, at the c…
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 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 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…
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…
Electrowetting is a commonly used tool to manipulate sessile drops on hydrophobic surfaces. By applying an external voltage over a liquid and a dielectric-coated surface, one achieves a reduction of the macroscopic contact angles for…
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…
A liquid drop impacting a dry solid surface with sufficient kinetic energy will splash, breaking apart into numerous secondary droplets. This phenomenon shows many similarities to forced wetting, including the entrainment of air at the…
We study the lubrication of fluid-immersed soft interfaces and show that elastic deformation couples tangential and normal forces and thus generates lift. We consider materials that deform easily, due to either geometry (e.g. a shell) or…
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…
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…
The wetting of solid surfaces can be manoeuvred by altering the energy balance at the interfacial region. While electric field acts favourably to spread a droplet on a rigid surface, this tendency may be significantly suppressed over soft…
The dynamic of contact formation between soft materials immersed in a fluid is accompanied by fluid drainage and elastic deformation. As a result, controlling the coupling between lubrication pressure and elasticity provides strategies to…
We present fluid dynamics videos illustrating wetting splashing-produced by water drop impact onto hydrophobic microstructures at high impact velocity ($\sim 3$ ms$^{-1}$). The substrate consists of regular and transparent microtextures in…
From hydrogels and plastics to liquid crystals, soft solids cover a wide array of synthetic and biological materials that play key enabling roles in advanced technologies such as 3D printing, soft robotics, wearable electronics,…
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 phenomenon of electrowetting, i.e., the dependence of the macroscopic contact angle of a fluid on the electrostatic potential of the substrate, is analyzed in terms of the density functional theory of wetting. It is shown that…
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…
The inter-connection between the elasticity of a dielectric film and the wetting of a sessile drop on the same, under an applied electrical voltage, remains unaddressed. Here, we report the electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) behaviour of…
We discuss how the wettability and roughness of a solid impacts its hydrodynamic properties. We see in particular that hydrophobic slippage can be dramatically affected by the presence of roughness. Owing to the development of refined…