Patterning of colloids into spirals via confined drying

Drying of complex fluids is a fascinating subject of interest to several growing fields, for example, forensic science, lithography, printing and coating technologies. In this article, we report that the drying of charge stabilized colloidal dispersions between two parallel plates is a route to intr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Soft matter Vol. 16; no. 15; p. 3753
Main Authors: Mondal, Ranajit, Basavaraj, Madivala G
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England 15.04.2020
ISSN:1744-6848, 1744-6848
Online Access:Get more information
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Drying of complex fluids is a fascinating subject of interest to several growing fields, for example, forensic science, lithography, printing and coating technologies. In this article, we report that the drying of charge stabilized colloidal dispersions between two parallel plates is a route to intriguing self-assembly patterns. We show that when the dispersions are dried in parallel plate confinement, particles deposit as spiral patterns after the complete evaporation of the solvent irrespective of the confinement spacing. The formation of such patterns is understood by analyzing the underlying three phase contact line dynamics during the drying process. Compared to the usual discrete stick-slip motion of the contact line, typically observed in several drying configurations, in the parallel plate drying configuration, the contact line is found to exhibit continuous stick-slip motion. The de-pinning of the contact line is found to occur only locally and is observed to propagate in both clockwise and anticlockwise directions, leading to the patterning of colloids as spirals. Furthermore, we show that while the number of turns in the spiral deposit is influenced by the dispersion volume and particle concentration, the spiral patterns form irrespective of the shape of the particles in the dispersion.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1744-6848
1744-6848
DOI:10.1039/d0sm00118j