Spatiotemporal measurement of surfactant distribution on gravity-capillary waves

TL;DR

This study measures the detailed spatiotemporal distribution of surfactants on fluid surfaces driven by gravity-capillary waves, revealing complex interactions and phase shifts between surface height and surfactant density.

Contribution

It introduces a non-invasive fluorescence imaging method to quantify surfactant density dynamics coupled with surface waves, providing new insights into wave-surfactant interactions.

Findings

Surfactant accumulates at the leading edge of meniscus waves and in the troughs of Faraday waves.

Measured wavenumbers and damping factors for surface and surfactant fields.

Damping factors for height and surfactant in meniscus waves differ, indicating longitudinal waves.

Abstract

Materials adsorbed to the surface of a fluid -- for instance, crude oil, biogenic slicks, or industrial/medical surfactants -- will move in response to surface waves. Due to the difficulty of non-invasive measurement of the spatial distribution of a molecular monolayer, little is known about the dynamics that couple the surface waves and the evolving density field. Here, we report measurements of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the density field of an insoluble surfactant driven by gravity-capillary waves in a shallow cylindrical container. Standing Faraday waves and traveling waves generated by the meniscus are superimposed to create a non-trivial surfactant density field. We measure both the height field of the surface using moir\'e-imaging, and the density field of the surfactant via the fluorescence of NBD-tagged phosphatidylcholine, a lipid. Through phase-averaging stroboscopically-acquired images of the density field, we determine that the surfactant accumulates on the leading edge of the traveling meniscus waves and in the troughs of the standing Faraday waves. We fit the spatiotemporal variations in the two fields using an ansatz consisting of a superposition of Bessel functions, and report measurements of the wavenumbers and energy damping factors associated with the meniscus and Faraday waves, as well as the spatial and temporal phase shifts between them. While these measurements are largely consistent for both types of waves and both fields, it is notable that the damping factors for height and surfactant in the meniscus waves do not agree, suggesting the presence of longitudinal waves.