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High friction on a bubble mattress

Nature Materials volume 6, pages 665–668 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Reducing the friction of liquid flows on solid surfaces has become an important issue with the development of microfluidics systems, and more generally for the manipulation of fluids at small scales. To achieve high slippage of liquids at walls, the use of gas as a lubricant1,2,3,4—such as microbubbles trapped in superhydrophobic surfaces5—has been suggested. The effect of microbubbles on the effective boundary condition has been investigated in a number of theoretical studies6,7,8,9, which basically show that on flat composite interfaces the magnitude of the slippage is proportional to the periodicity of the gaseous patterns10. Recent experiments aiming to probe the effective boundary condition on superhydrophobic surfaces with trapped bubbles have indeed shown high slippage in agreement with these theoretical predictions10,11,12. Here, we report nanorheology measurements of the boundary flow on a surface with calibrated microbubbles. We show that gas trapped at a solid surface can also act as an anti-lubricant and promote high friction. The liquid–gas menisci have a dramatic influence on the boundary condition, and can turn it from slippery to sticky. It is therefore essential to integrate the control of menisci in fluidic microsystems designed to reduce wall friction.

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Figure 1: Microstructured surfaces.
Figure 2: Nanorheology over microstructured surfaces.
Figure 3: Evolution of the slip length with the meniscus shape.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank L. Bocquet, P.-Y. Verilhac and X. Badel. We acknowledge support from ANR pNANO.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Lyon, CNRS UMR 5586, Laboratoire PMCN, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France

    Audrey Steinberger, Cécile Cottin-Bizonne & Elisabeth Charlaix

  2. Université Lyon 1, Lyon, F-69622, France

    Audrey Steinberger, Cécile Cottin-Bizonne, Pascal Kleimann & Elisabeth Charlaix

  3. Institut des Nanotechnologies de Lyon, INL, Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69003, France

    Pascal Kleimann

Authors
  1. Audrey Steinberger
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  2. Cécile Cottin-Bizonne
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  3. Pascal Kleimann
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  4. Elisabeth Charlaix
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Correspondence to Cécile Cottin-Bizonne.

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Steinberger, A., Cottin-Bizonne, C., Kleimann, P. et al. High friction on a bubble mattress. Nature Mater 6, 665–668 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1962

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