Related papers: Sculpting liquids with ultrathin shells

The wrinkling of thin elastic objects provides a means of generating regular patterning at small scales in applications ranging from photovoltaics to microfluidic devices. Static wrinkle patterns are known to be governed by an energetic…

The known ground state of ultrathin smectic films confined to the surface of a sphere is described by four +1/2 defects assembled on a great circle and a director which follows geodesic lines. Using a simple perturbative approach we show…

The effect of rigid surfaces on the dynamics of thin liquid films which are amenable to the lubrication approximation is considered. It is shown that the Helfrich energy of the layer gives rise to additional terms in the time-evolution…

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of the buckling of a thin film wrapped around a sphere under the action of capillary forces. A rigid sphere is coated with a wetting liquid, and then wrapped by a thin film into an…

Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…

We present a theoretical model and experimental demonstration of thin liquid film deformations due to a dielectric force distribution established by surface electrodes. We model the spatial electric field produced by a pair of parallel…

Sphere-patterned ultrathin block copolymers films are potentially interesting for a variety of applications in nanotechnology. We use self-consistent field theory to investigate the elastic response of sphere monolayer films with respect to…

We investigate how thin structures change their shape in response to non-mechanical stimuli that can be interpreted as variations in the structure's natural curvature. Starting from the theory of non-Euclidean plates and shells, we derive…

This work outlines a new multi-physics-compatible immersed rigid body method for Eulerian finite-volume simulations. To achieve this, rigid bodies are represented as a diffuse scalar field and an interface seeding method is employed to…

Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…

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…

Soft particles display highly versatile properties with respect to hard colloids, even more so at fluid-fluid interfaces. In particular, microgels, consisting of a cross-linked polymer network, are able to deform and flatten upon adsorption…

We investigate the encapsulation of water by a thin elastic film as a minimal model of elastocapillary self-folding with fluid transport. An equilateral triangular polydimethylsiloxane film is lifted quasi-statically from a water surface,…

Ultrathin polymer films on non-wettable substrates display dynamic features which have been attributed to either viscoelastic or slip effects. Here we show that in the weak and strong slip regime effects of viscoelastic relaxation are…

Elastic capsules, prepared from droplets or bubbles attached to a capillary (as in a pendant drop tensiometer), can be deflated by suction through the capillary. We study this deflation and show that a combined analysis of the shape and…

Chemical reactions and biological processes are often governed by the structure and transport dynamics of the interface between two liquid phases. Despite their importance, our microscopic understanding of liquid-liquid interfaces has been…

In recent years, there has been a considerable interest in the mechanics of soft objects meeting fluid interfaces (elasto-capillary interactions). In this work we experimentally examine the case of a fluid resting on a thin film of rigid…

We demonstrate spontaneous wrinkling as a transient dynamical pattern in thin freely floating smectic liquid-crystalline films. The peculiarity of such films is that, while flowing liquid-like in the film plane, they cannot quickly expand…

Curvature and mechanics are intimately connected for thin materials, and this coupling between geometry and physical properties is readily seen in folded structures from intestinal villi and pollen grains, to wrinkled membranes and…

In recent years, slippery surfaces have attracted significant interest due to their excellent liquid-repellent properties and their potential in diverse commercial applications. Such surfaces are prepared by coating functionalized solid…