Thursday, 26 April 2012, 4pm, D1.115.
The ongoing miniaturization in science and technology increases the importance of surfaces and boundaries and raises new questions about the behaviour of liquids in confinement. One particularly suitable way to address these emerging questions is by combining colloid science with soft-lithography techniques. We will focus on two problems. Firstly, we will study a liquid crystal phase of rodlike fd virus particles confined to channels with wedge structured walls, focusing on the interplay between different elasticities and boundary conditions. Here, we are uniquely able to observe this interplay in 3D at the single particle level, complementing experiments on molecular liquid crystals. Secondly, we will study the behaviour of colloidal interfaces under flow, and in particular the Saffman-Taylor or viscous fingering instability. Our experiments shine light on the 3D nature of the instability and the role of thermal interface fluctuations in strong confinement.