Confinement and interfaces (CI)

We study the impact of confinement or vicinity to an interface on the dynamics of particles and droplets, as well as the effect of capillary forces on droplet deformation.

Elastocapillarity of rotating beads and droplets

We study the deformation and relaxation of rotating soft droplets and beads to measure the transient effective interfacial tension between two miscible fluids or to characterize their visco-elastic properties.

Particle-interface interaction

The Brownian motion of particles trapped at a liquid-air interface or confined in its vicinity is observed to understand local hydrodynamics in relation to anchoring conditions.

*Interferometric measurement of the immersion depth of an ellipsoid at the air-water interface.*

Confined chiral liquid crystals

We study the dynamic and optical properties of confined liquid crystals (LC) with low curvature constants. Such materials could be low-power displays. We develop multiscale modeling tools to address light-matter interactions in such phases.

*Metastable domains in a cholesteric liquid crystal phase with low curvature constant under polarized light microscopy*

In order to understand chiral differentiation, we characterize the diffusive transport of chiral objects in confined chiral LCs.