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The odd free surface flows of a colloidal chiral fluid

Nature Physics volume 15, pages 1188–1194 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

In simple fluids, such as water, invariance under parity and time-reversal symmetry imposes that the rotation of constituent ‘atoms’ is determined by the flow and that viscous stresses damp motion. Activation of the rotational degrees of freedom of a fluid by spinning its atomic building blocks breaks these constraints and has thus been the subject of fundamental theoretical interest across classical and quantum fluids. However, the creation of a model liquid that isolates chiral hydrodynamic phenomena has remained experimentally elusive. Here, we report the creation of a cohesive two-dimensional chiral liquid consisting of millions of spinning colloidal magnets and study its flows. We find that dissipative viscous ‘edge-pumping’ is a key and general mechanism of chiral hydrodynamics, driving unidirectional surface waves and instabilities, with no counterpart in conventional fluids. Spectral measurements of the chiral surface dynamics suggest the presence of Hall viscosity, an experimentally elusive property of chiral fluids. Precise measurements and comparison with theory demonstrate excellent agreement with a minimal chiral hydrodynamic model, paving the way for the exploration of chiral hydrodynamics in experiment.

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Fig. 1: A chiral fluid of spinning colloidal magnets.
Fig. 2: Surface waves in a chiral spinner fluid.
Fig. 3: Characterization of a droplet of chiral spinner fluid.
Fig. 4: Wave dissipation and measurement of Hall viscosity.
Fig. 5: A hydrodynamic instability.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge discussions with P. Wiegmann, A. Abanov, V. Vitelli and A. Souslov. We also thank M. Fruchart for discussions and pointing us to the review of kinetic theory of Hall viscosity presented in the supplementary information of ref. 46. We finally thank J. Simon for designing our current control circuits and R. Morton for the rendering in Fig. 1b. This work was primarily supported by the University of Chicago Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation under award number DMR-1420709. Additional support was provided by NSF EFRI NewLAW grant 1741685 and the Packard Foundation. M.J.S. acknowledges the support from NSF grants DMR-1420073 (NYU-MRSEC) and DMS-1463962. S.S. acknowledges support from NSF award DMR-1653465. D.B. and W.T.M.I. gratefully acknowledge the Chicago-France FACCTS programme. The Chicago MRSEC (US NSF grant DMR 1420709) is also gratefully acknowledged for access to its shared experimental facilities.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Sofia Magkiriadou

    Present address: Laboratory for Experimental Biophysics, Institute of Physics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

  2. These authors contributed equally: Vishal Soni, Ephraim S. Bililign, Sofia Magkiriadou.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Vishal Soni, Ephraim S. Bililign & Sofia Magkiriadou

  2. Molecular Design Institute, Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Stefano Sacanna

  3. Laboratoire de Physique, ENS de Lyon, Université de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard, CNRS, F-69342, Lyon, France

    Denis Bartolo

  4. Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Michael J. Shelley

  5. Courant Institute, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Michael J. Shelley

  6. James Franck Institute, Enrico Fermi Institute and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    William T. M. Irvine

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Contributions

W.T.M.I. initiated research. W.T.M.I., D.B. and M.J.S. designed and supervised research. V.S., E.S.B. and S.M. designed and performed experiments and analysed data. D.B. and W.T.M.I. analysed data. M.J.S. and W.T.M.I. developed theory. S.S. and V.S. synthesized particles. S.M. built the magnetic control system. All authors discussed the results and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to William T. M. Irvine.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Petia Vlahovska and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information, Figs. 1–26 and refs. 1–21.

Supplementary Video 1

From spinning colloidal particles to a chiral fluid.

Supplementary Video 2

Particle tracers in the chiral spinner fluid.

Supplementary Video 3

Two clusters coalesce.

Supplementary Video 4

A droplet impacts a hard wall.

Supplementary Video 5

Bubble collapse.

Supplementary Video 6

Flow past a circular obstacle.

Supplementary Video 7

Surface waves in a chiral spinner fluid.

Supplementary Video 8

Droplet intensity in time.

Supplementary Video 9

Velocity field in a droplet.

Supplementary Video 10

A droplet of chiral fluid on a low-friction substrate.

Supplementary Video 11

A hydrodynamic instability.

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Soni, V., Bililign, E.S., Magkiriadou, S. et al. The odd free surface flows of a colloidal chiral fluid. Nat. Phys. 15, 1188–1194 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0603-8

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