A micro-nano-rheometer for the mechanics of soft matter at interfaces

We present a nano-rheometer based on the dynamic drainage flow between a sphere and a plane from bulk regime to highly confined regime. The instrument gives absolutemeasurements of theviscosity of simple liquids in both regimes. For complex fluids, themeasurements involve theviscosity and theelastic modulus. The device operates on distances ranging over four orders of magnitude from 1 nm to 10 μm, bridging rheological properties from the macroscopic to the molecular scale. This allows tomeasure anhydrodynamic orvisco-elasticboundary condition and to explore the causes of theboundary condition at the microscopic level.

Source: Review of Scientific Instruments - November 16, 2016 Category: Physics Authors: L éo Garcia, Chloé Barraud, Cyril Picard, Jérôme Giraud, Elisabeth Charlaix and Benjamin Cross Source Type: research