145 research outputs found
Late stage kinetics for various wicking and spreading problems
The kinetics of spreading of a liquid drop in a wedge or V-shaped groove, in
a network of such grooves, and on a hydrophilic strip, is re-examined. The
length of a droplet of volume Omega spreading in a wedge after a time t is
predicted to scale as Omega^(1/5) * t^(2/5), and the height profile is
predicted to be a parabola in the distance along the wedge. If the droplet is
spreading radially in a sparse network of V-shaped grooves on a surface, the
radius is predicted to scale as Omega^(1/6) * t^(1/3), provided the liquid is
completely contained within the grooves. A number of other results are also
obtained.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX
Diffusive Spreading of Chainlike Molecules on Surfaces
We study the diffusion and submonolayer spreading of chainlike molecules on
surfaces. Using the fluctuating bond model we extract the collective and tracer
diffusion coefficients D_c and D_t with a variety of methods. We show that
D_c(theta) has unusual behavior as a function of the coverage theta. It first
increases but after a maximum goes to zero as theta go to one. We show that the
increase is due to entropic repulsion that leads to steep density profiles for
spreading droplets seen in experiments. We also develop an analytic model for
D_c(theta) which agrees well with the simulations.Comment: 3 pages, RevTeX, 4 postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Letters (1996
Reverse undercompressive shock structures in driven thin film flow
We show experimental evidence of a new structure involving an
undercompressive and reverse undercompressive shock for draining films driven
by a surface tension gradient against gravity. The reverse undercompressive
shock is unstable to transverse perturbations while the leading
undercompressive shock is stable. Depending on the pinch-off film thickness, as
controlled by the meniscus, either a trailing rarefaction wave or a compressive
shock separates from the reverse undercompressive shock
Contact line stability of ridges and drops
Within the framework of a semi-microscopic interface displacement model we
analyze the linear stability of sessile ridges and drops of a non-volatile
liquid on a homogeneous, partially wet substrate, for both signs and arbitrary
amplitudes of the three-phase contact line tension. Focusing on perturbations
which correspond to deformations of the three-phase contact line, we find that
drops are generally stable while ridges are subject only to the long-wavelength
Rayleigh-Plateau instability leading to a breakup into droplets, in contrast to
the predictions of capillary models which take line tension into account. We
argue that the short-wavelength instabilities predicted within the framework of
the latter macroscopic capillary theory occur outside its range of validity and
thus are spurious.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur
Thermocapillary actuation of liquid flow on chemically patterned surfaces
We have investigated the thermocapillary flow of a Newtonian liquid on hydrophilic microstripes which are lithographically defined on a hydrophobic surface. The speed of the microstreams is studied as a function of the stripe width w, the applied thermal gradient |dT/dx| and the liquid volume V deposited on a connecting reservoir pad. Numerical solutions of the flow speed as a function of downstream position show excellent agreement with experiment. The only adjustable parameter is the inlet film height, which is controlled by the ratio of the reservoir pressure to the shear stress applied to the liquid stream. In the limiting cases where this ratio is either much smaller or much larger than unity, the rivulet speed shows a power law dependency on w, |dT/dx| and V. In this study we demonstrate that thermocapillary driven flow on chemically patterned surfaces can provide an elegant and tunable method for the transport of ultrasmall liquid volumes in emerging microfluidic technologies
Kinetics of Anchoring of Polymer Chains on Substrates with Chemically Active Sites
We consider dynamics of an isolated polymer chain with a chemically active
end-bead on a 2D solid substrate containing immobile, randomly placed
chemically active sites (traps). For a particular situation when the end-bead
can be irreversibly trapped by any of these sites, which results in a complete
anchoring of the whole chain, we calculate the time evolution of the
probability that the initially non-anchored chain remains mobile
until time . We find that for relatively short chains follows at
intermediate times a standard-form 2D Smoluchowski-type decay law , which crosses over at very large times to the
fluctuation-induced dependence , associated with
fluctuations in the spatial distribution of traps. We show next that for long
chains the kinetic behavior is quite different; here the intermediate-time
decay is of the form , which is the
Smoluchowski-type law associated with subdiffusive motion of the end-bead,
while the long-time fluctuation-induced decay is described by the dependence
, stemming out of the interplay between
fluctuations in traps distribution and internal relaxations of the chain.Comment: Latex file, 19 pages, one ps figure, to appear in PR
Post-Tanner stages of droplet spreading: the energy balance approach revisited
The spreading of a circular liquid drop on a solid substrate can be described
by the time evolution of its base radius R(t). In complete wetting the
quasistationary regime (far away from initial and final transients) typically
obeys the so-called Tanner law, with R t^alpha_T, alpha_T=1/10. Late-time
spreading may differ significantly from the Tanner law: in some cases the drop
does not thin down to a molecular film and instead reaches an equilibrium
pancake-like shape; in other situations, as revealed by recent experiments with
spontaneously spreading nematic crystals, the growth of the base radius
accelerates after the Tanner stage. Here we demonstrate that these two
seemingly conflicting trends can be reconciled within a suitably revisited
energy balance approach, by taking into account the line tension contribution
to the driving force of spreading: a positive line tension is responsible for
the formation of pancake-like structures, whereas a negative line tension tends
to lengthen the contact line and induces an accelerated spreading (a transition
to a faster power law for R(t) than in the Tanner stage).Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur
Increase of CXCR3+ T cells impairs Th17 cells recruitment in the small intestine mucosa through IFN-g and IL-18 during treated HIV-1 infection
The restoration of CD4+ T cells, especially T-helper type 17 (Th17) cells, remains incomplete in the gut mucosa of most human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)–infected individuals despite sustained antiretroviral therapy (ART). Herein, we report an increase in the absolute number of CXCR3+ T cells in the duodenal mucosa during ART. The frequencies of Th1 and CXCR3+ CD8+ T cells were increased and negatively correlated with CCL20 and CCL25 expression in the mucosa. In ex vivo analyses, we showed that interferon γ, the main cytokine produced by Th1 and effector CD8+ T cells, downregulates the expression of CCL20 and CCL25 by small intestine enterocytes, while it increases the expression of CXCL9/10/11, the ligands of CXCR3. Interleukin 18, a pro-Th1 cytokine produced by enterocytes, also contributes to the downregulation of CCL20 expression and increases interferon γ production by Th1 cells. This could perpetuate an amplification loop for CXCR3-driven Th1 and effector CD8+ T cells recruitment to the gut, while impairing Th17 cells homing through the CCR6-CCL20 axis in treated HIV-1–infected individuals
Post-Tanner spreading of nematic droplets
The quasistationary spreading of a circular liquid drop on a solid substrate
typically obeys the so-called Tanner law, with the instantaneous base radius
R(t) growing with time as R ~ t^{1/10} -- an effect of the dominant role of
capillary forces for a small-sized droplet. However, for droplets of nematic
liquid crystals, a faster spreading law sets in at long times, so that R ~
t^alpha with alpha significantly larger than the Tanner exponent 1/10. In the
framework of the thin film model (or lubrication approximation), we describe
this "acceleration" as a transition to a qualitatively different spreading
regime driven by a strong substrate-liquid interaction specific to nematics
(antagonistic anchoring at the interfaces). The numerical solution of the thin
film equation agrees well with the available experimental data for nematics,
even though the non-Newtonian rheology has yet to be taken into account. Thus
we complement the theory of spreading with a post-Tanner stage, noting that the
spreading process can be expected to cross over from the usual
capillarity-dominated stage to a regime where the whole reservoir becomes a
diffusive film in the sense of Derjaguin.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted in JPCM special issu
Defect-induced perturbations of atomic monolayers on solid surfaces
We study long-range morphological changes in atomic monolayers on solid
substrates induced by different types of defects; e.g., by monoatomic steps in
the surface, or by the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM), placed at some
distance above the substrate. Representing the monolayer in terms of a suitably
extended Frenkel-Kontorova-type model, we calculate the defect-induced density
profiles for several possible geometries. In case of an AFM tip, we also
determine the extra force exerted on the tip due to the tip-induced
de-homogenization of the monolayer.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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