Soft Condensation
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2024
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | |
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| _version_ | 1866914004568375296 |
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| author | Bouillant, Ambre Henkel, Christopher Thiele, Uwe Andreotti, Bruno Snoeijer, Jacco H. |
| author_facet | Bouillant, Ambre Henkel, Christopher Thiele, Uwe Andreotti, Bruno Snoeijer, Jacco H. |
| contents | When moist air meets a cold surface, it creates a breath figure characterized by numerous small droplets. The central question is how the vapor flux is distributed between the growth of previously condensed drops and the nucleation of new ones. Here, we investigate the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of droplets on soft crosslinked polymer networks. The number of droplets initially remains constant, until drops start to coarsen according to a universal law; both phenomena are explained via the formation of a saturated boundary layer. Although nucleation occurs at a scale where the polymer network resembles a melt, we quantitatively unveil an algebraic sensitivity of the number of droplets on the substrate elasticity. Our findings suggest that nucleation follows a surprisingly low-energy pathway, influenced by the degree of crosslinking. Consequently, breath figures offer a macroscopic approach to probe the molecular characteristics of the polymer interface. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_07624 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Soft Condensation Bouillant, Ambre Henkel, Christopher Thiele, Uwe Andreotti, Bruno Snoeijer, Jacco H. Fluid Dynamics Soft Condensed Matter When moist air meets a cold surface, it creates a breath figure characterized by numerous small droplets. The central question is how the vapor flux is distributed between the growth of previously condensed drops and the nucleation of new ones. Here, we investigate the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of droplets on soft crosslinked polymer networks. The number of droplets initially remains constant, until drops start to coarsen according to a universal law; both phenomena are explained via the formation of a saturated boundary layer. Although nucleation occurs at a scale where the polymer network resembles a melt, we quantitatively unveil an algebraic sensitivity of the number of droplets on the substrate elasticity. Our findings suggest that nucleation follows a surprisingly low-energy pathway, influenced by the degree of crosslinking. Consequently, breath figures offer a macroscopic approach to probe the molecular characteristics of the polymer interface. |
| title | Soft Condensation |
| topic | Fluid Dynamics Soft Condensed Matter |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07624 |