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Black phosphorus and its single-layer constituent, phosphorene, have emerged as promising two-dimensional materials with remarkable tribological properties. However, recent experimental investigations revealed that the their lubricating…
Viscous droplets impinging on soft substrates may exhibit several distinct behaviours including repeated bouncing, wetting, and hovering, i.e., spreading and retracting after impact without bouncing back or wetting. We experimentally study…
Scientific progress within the last few decades has revealed the functional morphology of an insect's sticky footpads -- a soft, sponge-like pad that secretes a thin liquid film. However, the physico-chemical mechanisms underlying their…
A model system has been recently developed to study adhesion. It consists of a giant lipid bilayer vesicle with reconstituted lipo-polymers (repellers) as well as with lipo-ligands recognized by receptors covering the substrate. Adhesion in…
Nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) have anomalously high vibration damping, and it has been assumed this is the cause of their anomalously high pressure-sensitive adhesion (PSA). Here we investigate the mechanism behind this enhanced…
Surface stresses have recently emerged as a key player in the mechanics of highly compliant solids. The classic theories of contact mechanics describe adhesion with a compliant substrate as a competition between surface energies driving…
Passive and effective fluid capture and transport at small scale is crucial for industrial and medical applications, especially for the realisation of point-of-care tests. Performing these tests involves several steps including biological…
We develop the concept of frequency dependent effective mass, M(omega), of jammed granular materials which occupy a rigid cavity to a filling fraction of 48%, the remaining volume being air of normal room condition or controlled humidity.…
Cracking of suspensions during drying is a common problem. While additives, e.g. binders and surfactants, can mitigate this problem, some applications, such as printing conductive pastes or sintering green bodies, do not lend themselves to…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…
Liquid drops slide more slowly over soft, deformable substrates than over rigid solids. This phenomenon can be attributed to the viscoelastic dissipation induced by the moving wetting ridge, which inhibits a rapid motion, and is called…
The leaf-like origami structure was inspired by geometric patterns found in nature, exhibiting unique transitions between open and closed shapes. With a bistable energy landscape, leaf-like origami is able to replicate the autonomous…
Foams exhibit absorptive properties and are widely used for cleaning contaminants, oil recovery, and selective mineral extraction via froth flotation. Although foam absorption has historically been linked to equilibrium osmotic pressure,…
We study the deformation of soft solid layers in the presence of sessile droplets or capillary bridges. By incorporating the surface tension balance at the contact line, we examine the rotation of the wetting ridge and the corresponding…
When humidified at different moisture conditions, restrained spider silk fibers can exhibit a very high supercontraction phenomenon. The hydration water molecules induce a Hydrogen-bonds disruption process that, due to entropic effects,…
Bio-inspired anti-wetting surfaces, such as lotus leaf or pitcher plant, have led to the development of stable liquid infused slippery surfaces for various scientific applications. The present work demonstrates the use of biomimetic…
Hypothesis: Lateral accumulation and film defects during drying of hard particle coatings is a common problem, typically solved using polymeric additives and surface active ingredients, which require further processing of the dried film.…
The surface tension of compliant materials such as gels provides resistance to deformation in addition to and sometimes surpassing that due to elasticity. This article studies how surface tension changes the contact mechanics of a small…
Mycelium bound composites are promising materials for a diverse range of applications including wearables and building elements. Their functionality surpasses some of the capabilities of traditionally passive materials, such as synthetic…
Membrane-fluctuation-induced attraction between ligand--receptor sites binding neighboring membranes is studied using meshless membrane simulations and the Weil--Farago two-dimensional lattice model. For the adhesion sites binding two…