Related papers: Marangoni Fingering Instabilities in Oxidizing Liq…
We identify and characterize a new class of fingering instabilities in liquid metals; these instabilities are unexpected due to the large interfacial tension of metals. Electrochemical oxidation lowers the effective interfacial tension of a…
Liquid metals exhibit remarkable mechanical properties, in particular large surface tension and low viscosity. However, these properties are greatly affected by oxidation when exposed to air. We measure the viscosity, surface tension, and…
The eutectic Ga-In (EGaIn) alloy has low vapor pressure, low toxicity, high thermal and electrical conductivities, and thus has shown a great potential for smart material applications. For such applications, EGaIn is maintained above its…
Spreading on the free surface of a complex fluid is ubiquitous in nature and industry, owing to the wide existence of complex fluids. Here we report on a fingering instability that develops during Marangoni spreading on a deep layer of…
When in a pristine state, gallium and its alloys have the largest interfacial tensions of any liquid at room temperature. Nonetheless, applying as little as 0.8 V of electric potential across eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn) placed within…
With exposure to air, many liquid metals spontaneously generate an oxide layer on their surface. In oscillatory rheological tests, this skin is found to introduce a yield stress that typically dominates the elastic response but can be tuned…
A linear analysis of thermal diffusion and Maxwell equations is applied to study the thermomagnetic instability in a type-II superconducting slab. It is shown that the instability can lead to formation of spatially nonuniform distributions…
Energy storage devices with liquid_metal electrodes have attracted interest in recent years due to their potential for mechanical resilience, self_healing, dendrite_free operation, and fast reaction kinetics. Gallium alloys like Eutectic…
This progress report summarizes recent studies of electrochemical oxidation to modulate the interfacial tension of gallium-based alloys. These alloys, which are liquid at ambient conditions, have the largest interfacial tension of any…
We sandwich a colloidal gel between two parallel plates and induce a radial flow by lifting the upper plate at a constant velocity. Two distinct scenarios result from such a tensile test: ($i$) stable flows during which the gel undergoes a…
For the advancement of highly-integrated stretchable electronics, the development of scalable sub-micrometer conductor patterning is required. Eutectic gallium indium EGaIn is an attractive conductor for stretchable electronics, as its…
Thermal effect is essential to regulate the interfacial instabilities for diverse technology applications. Here we report the fingering instability at the propagation front for a spreading liquid film subjected to the supercooling at the…
Electron current layers, which form in various natural and laboratory plasmas, are susceptible to multiple instabilities, with tearing being a prominent instability driven by current gradients. Tearing is considered a potential mechanism…
The invasion of one fluid into another of higher viscosity in a quasi-two dimensional geometry typically produces complex fingering patterns. Because interfacial tension suppresses short-wavelength fluctuations, its elimination by using…
Marangoni instabilities can emerge when a liquid interface is subjected to a concentration or temperature gradient. It is generally believed that for these instabilities bulk effects like buoyancy are negligible as compared to interfacial…
We experimentally study the viscous fingering instability in a fluid-fluid phase separated colloid-polymer mixture by means of laser scanning confocal microscopy and microfluidics. We focus on three aspects of the instability. (i) The…
Double-diffusive instabilities are often invoked to explain enhanced transport in stably-stratified fluids. The most-studied natural manifestation of this process, fingering convection, commonly occurs in the ocean's thermocline and…
When a liquid viscous bridge between two parallel substrates is stretched by accelerating one substrate, its interface recedes in the radial direction. In some cases the interface becomes unstable. Such instability leads to the emergence of…
The spreading of a thin film of suspension on a spinning disk and the accompanying contact line instability is studied through flow visualization experiments. The critical radius for the onset of instability shows an increase with increase…
Viscous fingering (VF) is an interfacial instability that occurs in a narrow confinement or porous medium when a less-viscous fluid pushes a more viscous one, producing finger-like patterns. Controlling the VF instability is essential to…