Transmission-speckle correlation for measuring dynamic deformation of liquid surface

In this paper, a method based on transmission-speckle correlation is proposed for measuring static and dynamic deformation of liquid surface. In the method, a high-speed camera placed vertically above the tested liquid surface is used to observe and record a special speckle pattern put in advance at the bottom of liquid. According to the Snell׳s law, the deformation of liquid surface will lead to the movement of the transmission-speckles. In terms of this, the quantitative relationship between height changes of liquid surface and the in-plane displacement of transmission-speckles can be deduced. Combining with multi-directional Newton iteration algorithm, the dynamic deformation field of liquid surface can be calculated from the in-plane displacement vector field of transmission-speckle images in different moment using speckle correlation method. The sensitivity of the method in measuring height changes of liquid surface is discussed. In this paper, a validation test to measure the surface morphology of a plano-convex lens demonstrates the feasibility and the effectiveness of the method. In addition, the dynamic deformation and propagation process of ripples in the water surface caused by a droplet were investigated.     

Nonlinear oscillations of a charged jet of a conducting liquid under multimode initial deformation of its surface

The subject of consideration is a uniformly charged jet of an ideal incompressible conducting liquid moving with a constant velocity along the symmetry axis of an undisturbed cylindrical surface. An evolutionary expression for the jet shape is derived accurate to the second order of smallness in oscillation amplitude for the case when the initial deformation of the equilibrium surface is a superposition of a finite number of both axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric modes. The flow velocity field in the jet and the electric field distribution near it are determined. The positions of internal nonlinear secondary combined three-mode resonances are found, which are typical of nonlinear corrections to the analytical expressions for the jet shape, flow velocity field potentials, and electrostatic field in the vicinity of the jet.     

Nanoscale anisotropic plastic deformation in single crystal aragonite

The nanoscale anisotropic elastic-plastic behavior of single-crystal aragonite is studied using nanoindentation and tapping mode atomic force microscopy imaging. Force-depth curves coaxial to the axis exhibited load plateaus indicative of dislocation nucleation events. Plasticity on distinct slip systems was evident in residual topographic impressions where four pileup lobes were present after indentation with a conospherical probe and distinct, protruding slip bands were present after indentation with a Berkovich pyramidal probe. A finite element crystal plasticity model revealed the governing roles of the {110}<001>slip system family, as well as the (100)[010], (100)[001], (010)[100], (010)[001], (001)[100] and (001)[010] systems.     

Nanoscale flow on a bubble mattress: effect of surface elasticity

We present an experimental study of the elastic properties of a superhydrophobic surface in the Cassie regime, due to the gas bubbles trapped at the liquid-solid interface. We use a surface force apparatus to measure the force response to an oscillating drainage flow between a sphere and the surface. We show that the force response allows to determine the surface elasticity without contact, using the liquid film as a probe. The elasticity of the bubble mattress is dominated by the meniscii stiffness, and its determination enables us to probe the shape of these meniscii. Another effect of surface elasticity is to decrease the viscous friction. We show that this effect can be wrongly attributed to rate dependant boundary slippage if elastohydrodynamics is not taken into account.     

Nanoscale self-organization using standing surface acoustic waves

The diffusion of an adatom on a substrate submitted to a standing surface acoustic wave is theoretically studied. By performing large scale molecular dynamic simulations, we show that the wave dynamically structures the substrate by encouraging the presence of the adatom in the vicinity of the maximum displacements of the substrate. Using an analytical model, we explain this feature introducing an effective potential induced by the wave. Applied in an atomic deposition experiment, this dynamic structuring process should govern the nucleation sites distribution opening the route to accurately control the self-organization process at the nanoscale.     

Flexural rigidity of a liquid surface

The energy of a mass of liquid is evaluated asymptotically in powers of the range of the intermolecular potential divided by a typical dimension of the liquid. The leading term is the internal energy, proportional to the liquid volume. The second term is the energy of surface tension, proportional to the area of the liquid surface. The third term is proportional to an integral over this surface of the square of the mean curvature of the surface minus one-third of its Gaussian curvature. This new term has exactly the form of the bending energy of a thin elastic plate. Comparing it with the bending energy yields expressions for the flexural rigidity and the Poisson ratio of the liquid surface. This flexural rigidity of the surface leads to new terms in the equation of equilibrium of the liquid surface, in addition to the usual surface tension terms.     

Nanoscale deformation irregularities of γ-irradiated poly(methyl methacrylate)

Development of deformation jumps in the creep of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) has been studied. The structural levels of deformation have been determined from the creep rate oscillation periods (deformation jumps) measured by the interferometric method. Special attention is given to a new method of data processing, which enables one to reveal previously undetectable nanoscale deformation jumps. By the example of PMMA specimens preliminarily exposed to γ radiation with doses D=55–330 kGy and unexposed specimens, the presence of nanoscale deformation jumps with the values dependent on the dose D and time of creep has been shown. The obtained results confirm the existence of 10–20-nm domains in amorphous polymers and make it possible to study the multilevel organization of the deformation process, starting from the nanoscale.     

Thermal deformation of a solid surface under laser irradiation

A calculation is presented for the deformation of a solid surface when subjected to laser irradiation. The elastic response of the target is given in terms of the stress and displacement field due to thermal expansion, thus allowing an explicit evaluation of the shape of the deformed target surface. Quantitative results are obtained for the height and shape of the induced bump as a function of the laser pulse and target properties. The thermal load threshold is specified for the onset of plastic yield.     

Polymer adsorption at a liquid surface

Expressions are obtained for the distribution of polymer chains at the surface transition zone of a simple solvent.     

One-component adsorption onto a solid surface with surface deformation taken into account

Nonlinear partial differential equations (consistency equations) describing equilibrium one-component adsorption from a liquid solution onto a solid surface carrying electric charges are studied analytically in a general statement taking the scalar surface deformation into account. In this case, all unknown functions may depend on all three independent arguments specifying the equilibrium thermodynamic state of the system, namely, the surface absorbate concentration, the electric potential of the solid phase, and the surface deformation. For small deformations, the isotherm equation is derived in the particular case of a surface layer construction, namely, a model of two parallel capacitors. It is shown that the surface tension can lead to the stratification of the adsorptive layer.     

Thermocapillary deformation of a thin locally heated horizontal liquid layer

In this paper, steady thermocapillary flow in a thin horizontal layer of a viscous incompressible liquid with a free surface is considered. An axially symmetric steady problem with a localized thermal action on a horizontal liquid layer with a deformable free surface is solved in a thin-layer approximation. In addition to the thermocapillary effect, the model takes into account the capillary pressure caused by the free surface variable curvature and the convective mechanism of heat transfer in the liquid. Analytical expressions for the velocity vector components as functions of the liquid layer thickness and surface temperature are obtained. The free surface and velocity profiles caused by various kinds of heating are calculated. The influence of convective heat transfer on the flow pattern is analyzed.     

Nanoscale imaging of surface piezoresponse on GaN epitaxial layers

Surfaces of GaN films were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) with implemented piezoelectric force microscopy technique. A model of PFM based on the surface depletion region in GaN films is discussed. The local piezoelectric effect of the low frequency regime was found to be in phase with the applied voltage on large domains, corresponding to a Ga-face of the GaN layer. Low piezoresponse is obtained within the inter-domain regions. The use of frequencies near a resonance frequency enhances very much the resolution of piezo-imaging, but only for very low scanning speed the piezo-imaging can follow the local piezoelectric effect. An inversion of the PFM image contrast is obtained for frequencies higher than the resonance frequencies. The effect of a chemical surface treatment on the topography and the piezoresponse of the GaN films was also investigated. Textured surfaces with very small domains were observed after the chemical treatment. For this kind of surfaces, piezo-induced torsion rather than bending of the AFM cantilever dominates the contrast of the PFM images. A small memory effect was observed, and explained by surface charging and confinement of the piezoelectric effect within the carrier depletion region at the GaN surface.     

Long-wavelength structure on a charged liquid surface

The problem of the equilibrium form of a charged surface of a dielectric liquid in a strong electric field, such that a flat surface becomes unstable, is studied. A periodic long-wavelength structure with a small amplitude can arise when the gap between the surface and a charged electrode is small compared with the capillary length and the charge completely screens the electric field. The equilibrium form of the surface is calculated assuming that the resulting wave is one-dimensional. The effect of the boundary conditions at the vessel walls on the dependence of the amplitude of the standing wave on the applied voltage is estimated. It is shown that this dependence is very sensitive to the conditions of contact between the vessel walls and the liquid. The possibility is discussed of using the theory developed in this paper to explain the experimental results obtained with a charged liquid-hydrogen surface. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 115, 43–49 (January 1999)     

Nanoscale surface roughness characterization by full field polarized light-scattering

Characterizing surface roughness in nanoscale nondestructively is an urgent need for semiconductor and wafer manufacturing industries. To meet the need, an optical scatter instrument in bidirectional ellipsometry has been developed for characterizing nanoscale surface roughness, in particular, on the wafers after chemical-mechanical polishing. The polarized angular dependence of out-of-plane light-scattering from nanoscale surface roughness is analyzed and characterized. These analysis and characterization results show strong correlations of surface roughness and angular dependence of bidirectional ellipsometric parameters for full field light-scattering. The experimental findings prove good agreement with theoretical predictions for different surface roughnesses. As a result, the nanoscale surface roughness can be accurately measured and characterized by the angular dependence and the polarization of light scattered from surface.     

Nanoscale deformation measurement by using the hybrid method of gray-level and holographic interferometry

This study extends the use of holographic interferometry to measure the nanoscale out-of-plane displacement with high surface resolution. It is noted that if the deformation is less than half of the optical wavelength, it is hard to find an obvious fringe pattern. Under such a situation, in general, the phase shift method is used. However, it needs to take more than 3 images for phase shifting and phase reconstruction In this paper, a more simple hybrid method of gray-level and holographic interferometry is used to extract fringe skeletons, in which it just needs to take one or two images for the normal deformation measurement directly, even if there exists no obvious fringe pattern. The displacement field with high surface resolution can also be obtained. The proposed method yielded a theoretical precision of 0.15 nm for out-of-plane displacement with a monochromatic CCD camera of 10-bit gray scale (1024 gray scales) sensitivity and microscale surface resolution for millimeter scale object with 640×480 pixels image resolution by an He–Ne LASER (632.8 nm wavelength) light source. The gray-level method is proposed to calculate the non-obvious interferometry fringe by traditional holographic interferometry hologram, and the result showed that this method works for this purpose.     

Observation of surface layering in a nonmetallic liquid

Oscillatory density profiles (layers) have previously been observed at the free surfaces of liquid metals but not in other isotropic liquids. We have used x-ray reflectivity to study a molecular liquid, tetrakis(2-ethylhexoxy)silane. When cooled to T/Tc approximately 0.25 (well above the freezing point for this liquid), density oscillations appear at the surface. Lateral order within the layers is liquidlike. Our results confirm theoretical predictions that a surface-layered state will appear even in dielectric liquids at sufficiently low temperatures, if not preempted by freezing.