A micro-nano-rheometer for the mechanics of soft matter at interfaces

Léo Garcia (1) , Chloé Barraud (1) , Cyril Picard (1) , Jérôme Giraud (1) , Elisabeth Charlaix (1) , Benjamin Cross (1)

1 LIPhy - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique [Saint Martin d’Hères]

We present a nano-rheometer based on the dynamic drainage flow between a sphere and a plane from bulk regime to highly confined regime. The instrument gives absolute measurements of the viscosity of simple liquids in both regime. For complex fluids, the measurements involves the viscosity and the elastic modulus. The device operates on distances ranging over four orders of magnitude from 1 nanometer to 10 micrometers, bridging rheological properties from the macroscopic to the molecular scale. This allows to measure an hydrodynamic or visco-elastic boundary condition and to explore the causes of the boundary condition at the microscopic level.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Léo Garcia, Chloé Barraud, Cyril Picard, Jérôme Giraud, Elisabeth Charlaix, et al.. A micro-nano-rheometer for the mechanics of soft matter at interfaces. Review of Scientific Instruments, 2016, 87 (11), pp.113906. ⟨10.1063/1.4967713⟩. ⟨hal-01581974⟩