This study demonstrates for the first time abnormal electro-optic (EO) characteristics induced by electrohydrodynamics (EHD) in a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) film in the presence of a low-frequency (1 kHz) AC voltage. Large LC droplets (20−40 μm) buried in the film can be obtained after the illumination of one UV light with a weak intensity (~0.96 mW/cm2) for 12 h. This film exhibit...

The delivery of suspended active ingredients to a surface is a central function of numerous commercial cosmetic, drug, and agricultural formulations. Many products use liquid droplets as a delivery vehicle but, because interfacial tension keeps droplets spherical, these materials cannot exploit the benefits of anisotropic shape and shape change offered by solid colloids. In this work, individua...

Based on a thermodynamically consistent model for precipitation in gallium arsenide crystals including surface tension and bulk stresses by Dreyer and Duderstadt [DD08], we propose two different mathematical models to describe the size evolution of liquid droplets in a crystalline solid. The first model treats the diffusion-controlled regime of interface motion, while the second model is concer...

The wetting behavior of ring-shaped (or annular) surface domains is studied both experimentally and theoretically. The ring-shaped domains are lyophilic and embedded in a lyophobic substrate. Liquid droplets deposited on these domains can attain a variety of morphologies depending on the liquid volume and on the dimensions of the ringlike surface domains. In the experiments, the liquid volume i...

Micro scale liquid metal droplets have been hailed as the potential key building blocks of future micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, most of the current liquid metal enabled systems involve millimeter scale droplets, which are manually injected onto the desired locations of the microchip. Despite its simplicity, this method is impractical for patterning large arrays or complex sy...

Drops subjected to strong electric fields emit charged jets from their pointed tips. The disintegration of such jets into a spray consisting of charged droplets is common to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, printing and coating processes, and raindrops in thunderclouds. Currently, there exist conflicting theories and measurements on the size and charge of these small electrospray drop...

A device capable of separating biological cells (suspended in a conducting medium) according to volume has been developed. Cell volume is measured in a Coulter aperture, and the cells are subsequently isolated in droplets of the medium which are charged according to the sensed volume. The charged droplets then enter an electrostatic field and are deflected into a collection vessel. Mixtures of ...

Liquid droplets, widely encountered in everyday life, have no flat facets. Here we show that water-dispersed oil droplets can be reversibly temperature-tuned to icosahedral and other faceted shapes, hitherto unreported for liquid droplets. These shape changes are shown to originate in the interplay between interfacial tension and the elasticity of the droplet's 2-nm-thick interfacial monolayer,...

Eukaryotic cells contain membrane-less organelles, including nucleoli and stress granules, that behave like liquid droplets. Such endogenous condensates often have internal substructure, but how this is established in the absence of membrane encapsulation remains unclear. We find that the N- and C-terminal domains of TDP43, a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein implicated in neurodegenerati...

The growth of a two-phase cloud of a liquid fuel in a stagnant atmosphere is studied using computational fluid dynamic techniques. In order to predict the danger and hazard of such cloud in open atmosphere it is very important to determine the fuel concentration in the cloud, especially in the far field region from the fuel reservoir. The results show that with omission of droplets break up...