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ThAMeS Group Publishes Cover Paper in Physical Review Letters

5 November 2024

Researchers from the ThAMeS group, led by Prof Panagiota Angeli, published the cover paper in Physical Review Letters -- one of the most prestigious journals in physics and home to numerous Nobel Prize-winning papers. Congratulations to the team on this remarkable achievement!

This figure on the cover page presents a time-lapse reconstruction of interference images, showing the spreading of an oil film during the evaporation of an oil-in-water emulsion drop on a bare glass slide, viewed from below through a microscope.

In this study, the lead author Dr Teng Dong and collaborators investigated the evaporation of emulsion drops on flat surfaces, in the context of pesticide applications. They reported a fascinating phenomenon observed for the first time: during spreading, the oil film formed by the coalescence of dispersed droplets in the emulsion develops into two distinct layers, creating a ‘blooming flower’ pattern on the surface and accelerating spreading.

The team attributed this unique two-layer structure to variations in disjoining pressure across the film, driven by the assembly of surfactant micelles. These findings contribute valuable insights for diverse applications, from inkjet printing and agrochemical delivery to film coating and spray cooling.   

This project is a collaboration with Prof. Alberto Striolo from the University of Oklahoma and Innospec.

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Image credit

  • Dr Teng Dong