Dynamics of capillary spreading along hydrophilic microstripes

We have studied the capillary spreading of a Newtonian liquid along hydrophilic microstripes that are chemically defined on a hydrophobic substrate. The front of the spreading film advances in time according to a power law x=Bt1/2. This exponent of 1/2 is much larger than the value 1/10 observed in the axisymmetric spreading of a wetting droplet. It is identical to the exponent found for wicking in open or closed microchannels. Even though no wicking occurs in our system, the influence of surface curvature induced by the lateral confinement of the liquid stripe also leads to an exponent of 1/2 but with a strongly modified prefactor B. We obtain excellent experimental agreement with the predicted time dependence of the front location and the dependence of the front speed on the stripe width. Additional experiments and simulations reveal the influence of the reservoir volume, liquid material parameters, edge roughness, and nonwetting defects. These results are relevant to liquid dosing applications or microfluidic delivery systems based on free-surface flow

Waves of DNA: Propagating excitations in extended nanoconfined polymers

We use a nanofluidic system to investigate the emergence of thermally driven collective phenomena along a single polymer chain. In our approach, a single DNA molecule is confined in a nanofluidic slit etched with arrays of embedded nanocavities; the cavity lattice is designed so that a single chain occupies multiple cavities. Fluorescent video-microscopy data shows fluctuations in intensity between cavities, including waves of excess fluorescence that propagate across the cavity-straddling molecule, corresponding to propagating fluctuations of contour overdensity in the cavities. The transfer of DNA between neighboring pits is quantified by examining the correlation in intensity fluctuations between neighboring cavities. Correlations grow from an anticorrelated minimum to a correlated maximum before decaying, corresponding to a transfer of contour between neighboring cavities at a fixed transfer time scale. The observed dynamics can be modeled using Langevin dynamics simulations and a minimal lattice model of coupled diffusion. This study shows how confinement-based sculpting of the polymer equilibrium configuration, by renormalizing the physical system into a series of discrete cavity states, can lead to new types of dynamic collective phenomena.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant NSERC-DG, 386212-10)Canada Foundation for InnovationNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Postdoctoral Fellowship

Transition state theory demonstrated at the micron scale with out-of-equilibrium transport in a confined environment

International audienceTransition state theory (TST) provides a simple interpretation of many thermally activated processes. It applies successfully on timescales and length scales that differ several orders of magnitude: to chemical reactions, breaking of chemical bonds, unfolding of proteins and RNA structures and polymers crossing entropic barriers. Here we apply TST to out-of-equilibrium transport through confined environments: the thermally activated translocation of single DNA molecules over an entropic barrier helped by an external force field. Reaction pathways are effectively one dimensional and so long that they are observable in a microscope. Reaction rates are so slow that transitions are recorded on video. We find sharp transition states that are independent of the applied force, similar to chemical bond rupture, as well as transition states that change location on the reaction pathway with the strength of the applied force. The states of equilibrium and transition are separated by micrometres as compared with angstroms/nanometres for chemical bonds

Nanoconfinement-enhanced conformational response of single DNA molecules to changes in ionic environment

We show that the ionic environment plays a critical role in determining the configurational properties of DNA confined in silica nanochannels. The extension of DNA in the nanochannels increases as the ionic strength is reduced, almost tripling over two decades in ionic strength for channels around 100x100 nm in dimension. Surprisingly, we find that the variation of the persistence length alone with ionic strength is not enough to explain our results. The effect is due mainly to increasing self-avoidance created by the reduced screening of electrostatic interactions at low ionic strength. To quantify the increase in self-avoidance, we introduce a new parameter into the de Gennes theory: an effective DNA width that gives the increase in the excluded volume due to electrostatic repulsion

Statics and dynamics of single DNA molecules confined in nanochannels

The successful design of nanofluidic devices for the manipulation of biopolymers requires an understanding of how the predictions of soft condensed matter physics scale with device dimensions. Here we present measurements of DNA extended in nanochannels and show that below a critical width roughly twice the persistence length there is a crossover in the polymer physics