Dynamics of soft matter and complex fluids in confined geometry
Résumé
The manipulation of fluids in nanochannels has become a crucial issue for many foreseen applications in advanced nanomaterials and biotechnology. Fundamental questions arise from the unexpected behaviors of fluids confined in capillaries of nanometric dimension, which rule out the validity of some approaches derived from the physics of liquids at the macro or microscopic scale. Intensive experimental studies of molecular liquids have shown that confinement on a nanometric scale considerably modifies the structure, phase behavior and molecular dynamics. Recently, much effort has focused on the unusual dynamic properties of low-molecular weight liquids and glassforming systems in mesoporous solids. It reveals a complex entanglement of low dimensionality, finite size and surface effects. In this field, a current challenge is to extend the knowledge of nanoconfined liquids to more complex fluids such as soft matter or solutions of biological interest. The aim of the present contribution is indeed to present some original features that are observed, when the confined system is tuned from pure globular liquids to anisotropic mesogenic molecules or multi-component glassforming bioprotectant solutions.