Soft solids differ from stiff solids in an important way: their surface stresses can drive large deformations. Based on a topical workshop held in the Lorentz Center in Leiden, this Opinion highlights some recent advances in the growing field of solid capillarity and poses key questions for its advancement.

Aligned CNT nanocomposites with variable volume fraction, up to 20%, are demonstrated. Biaxial mechanical densification of aligned CNT forests, followed by capillarity-driven wetting using unmodified aerospace-grade polymers, creates centimeter-scale specimens. Characterizations confirm CNT alignment and dispersion in the thermosets, providing a useful platform for controlled nanoscale interact...

We study the assembly of inert and living colloids in a two-phase water-water system that provides an environment that can sustain bacteria, providing a new structure with rich potential to confine and structure microbial communities. The water-water system, formed via phase separation of a casein and xanthan mixture, forms a 3-D structure of coexisting casein-rich and xanthan-rich phases. Fluo...

Recent experimental developments showed that the use of the radiation pressure, induced by a continuous laser wave, to control fluid-fluid interface deformations at the microscale, represents a very promising alternative to electric or magnetic actuation. In this article, we solve numerically the dynamics and steady state of the fluid interface under the effects of buoyancy, capillarity, optica...

We report on the capillarity-induced snapping of elastic beams. We show that a millimeter-sized water drop gently deposited on a thin buckled polymer strip may trigger an elastocapillary snap-through instability. We investigate experimentally and theoretically the statics and dynamics of this phenomenon and we further demonstrate that snapping can act against gravity, or be induced by soap bubb...

We provide a quantitative description of global minimizers of the Gauss free energy for a liquid droplet bounded in a container in the small volume regime.

Directed self-assembly can produce ordered or organized superstructures from pre-existing building blocks through pre-programmed interactions. Encoding desired information into building blocks with specific directionality and strength, however, poses a significant challenge for the development of self-assembled superstructures. Here, we demonstrate that controlling the shape and patchiness of p...

The ponderomotive force, exerted upon all dielectric liquids by a non-uniform electric field, can be used for the remote, voltage-controlled manipulation of 10 to 100μL volumes of cryogenic liquids. This liquid dielectrophoretic (DEP) effect, imposed by specially designed electrodes, combines with capillarity to influence the hydrostatic equilibria of liquid deuterium. A simple, one-dimensional...

We consider some of the complications that arise in attempting to generalize a version of Archimedes’ principle of floatation to account for capillary effects. The main result provides a means to relate the floating position (depth in the liquid) of a symmetrically floating sphere in terms of readily observable geometric quantities. A similar result is obtained for an idealized case correspondi...

BACKGROUND Impaired angiogenesis in cardiac tissue is a major complication of diabetes. Protein kinase B (AKT) and extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathways play important role during capillary-like network formation in angiogenesis process. OBJECTIVES To determine the effects of testosterone and voluntary exercise on levels of vascularity, phosphorylated Akt (P- AKT) and...