Open AccessShapes of Nonsymmetric Capillary Bridges
Author(s) -
Lawrence R. Pratt,
Diego T. Gomez,
Ajay Muralidharan,
Noshir S. Pesika
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the journal of physical chemistry. b
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1520-6106
pISSN - 1520-5207
DOI - 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c07448
Subject(s) - sign (mathematics) , bridging (networking) , silhouette , capillary action , bridge (graph theory) , boundary (topology) , quadrature (astronomy) , geometry , mathematics , mathematical analysis , computer science , physics , optics , artificial intelligence , computer network , thermodynamics , medicine
Here we study the shapes of droplets captured between chemically distinct parallel plates. This work is a preliminary step toward characterizing the influence of second-phase bridging between biomolecular surfaces on their solution contacts, i.e., capillary attraction or repulsion. We obtain a simple, variable-separated quadrature formula for the bridge shape. The technical complication of double-ended boundary conditions on the shapes of nonsymmetric bridges is addressed by studying waists in the bridge shape, i.e., points where the bridge silhouette has zero derivative. Waists are generally expected with symmetric bridges, but waist points can serve to characterize shape segments in general cases. We study how waist possibilities depend on the physical input to these problems, noting that these formulas change with the sign of the inside-outside pressure difference of the bridge. These results permit a variety of different interesting shapes, and the development below is accompanied by several examples.