Physics of Fluids - Publications

Liquid drops attract or repel by the inverted Cheerios effect

arΧiv
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1–5 (2016)

Authors

	Stefan Karpitschka
	Anupam Pandey
	Luuk Lubbers
	Joost Weijs
	Lorenzo Botto
	Siddhartha Das
	Bruno Andreotti
	Jacco Snoeijer

BibTeΧ

@article{Karpitschka13062016,
author = {Karpitschka, Stefan and Pandey, Anupam and Lubbers, Luuk A. and Weijs, Joost H. and Botto, Lorenzo and Das, Siddhartha and Andreotti, Bruno and Snoeijer, Jacco H.}, 
title = {Liquid drops attract or repel by the inverted Cheerios effect},
year = {2016}, 
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1601411113}, 
abstract ={Solid particles floating at a liquid interface exhibit a long-ranged attraction mediated by surface tension. In the absence of bulk elasticity, this is the dominant lateral interaction of mechanical origin. Here, we show that an analogous long-range interaction occurs between adjacent droplets on solid substrates, which crucially relies on a combination of capillarity and bulk elasticity. We experimentally observe the interaction between droplets on soft gels and provide a theoretical framework that quantitatively predicts the interaction force between the droplets. Remarkably, we find that, although on thick substrates the interaction is purely attractive and leads to drop–drop coalescence, for relatively thin substrates a short-range repulsion occurs, which prevents the two drops from coming into direct contact. This versatile interaction is the liquid-on-solid analog of the “Cheerios effect.” The effect will strongly influence the condensation and coarsening of drops on soft polymer films, and has potential implications for colloidal assembly and mechanobiology.}, 
URL = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/10/1601411113.abstract}, 
eprint = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/10/1601411113.full.pdf}, 
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences} 
}