The interface between two liquids – such as the surface of a water droplet in oil – provides a versatile platform for arranging small particles into functional membranes and other materials. Owing to the large energy cost of the fluid interface, nanometer-to-micron-sized colloidal particles readily adsorb at the interface. While this adsorption phenomenon has been used in industry for decades, it continues to pose fundamentally fascinating and technologically relevant questions. We will describe recent studies of the shape of the three-phase contact line and the contact angle on particles at fluid interfaces. We will then turn to theory and experiments that show how to manipulate particles by means of interface shape, taking advantage of the interplay between geometric frustration and long-range deformations. Finally we will present measurements of hysteresis in the contact angle at interfaces with anisotropic shape.

Solid particles, fluid interfaces, and new opportunities for functional materials

254th National Meeting (2017)

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