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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 18: Complex Fluids and Soft Matter 1 (joint session DY/CPP)

CPP 18.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 09:20–09:40, DYa

Coalescence of liquid droplets in a quasi 2D liquid film — •Christoph Klopp, Ralf Stannarius, and Eremin Alexey — Institute of Physics, Otto von Guericke University, Department of Nonlinear Phenomena, 39106 Magdeburg

Coalescence of droplets plays a crucial role in nature and modern technology. Various experimental and theoretical studies explored droplet dynamics in 3D and on 2D solid or liquid substrates [1-3].

Here, we demonstrate coalescence of isotropic droplets in thin quasi 2D liquids, an overheated smectic A films. We investigated their dynamics experimentally and measured the shape deformation during the whole merging process using high-speed imaging. This system is a unique example, where the lubrication approximation can be directly applied, and the smectic membrane plays the role of the precursor film. Our studies reveal the scaling laws of the coalescence time depending on the droplet size and the material parameters. We also compared our results with existing models for liquid lens coalescence on liquid and solid surfaces.

[1] J. D. Paulsen et al., Coalescence of bubbles and drops in an outer fluid, Nat. Commun. 5, 3182 (2014)

[2] D. G. A. L Aarts et al., Hydrodynamics of Droplet Coalescence, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 164503 (2005)

[3] N. S. Shuravin et al., Coalescence of viscous two-dimensional smectic islands, Phys. Rev. E 99, 062702 (2019)