Contactless rheology of finite-size air-water interfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a contactless method using atomic-force microscopy to measure the hydrodynamic interactions at air-water interfaces, revealing how bubble size influences response and enabling non-contact surface tension measurement.

Contribution

It develops a viscocapillary lubrication model for finite-size bubbles and demonstrates contactless measurement of surface tension, advancing non-invasive interface characterization.

Findings

Bubble size significantly affects hydrodynamic response.

The model accurately predicts experimental data.

Surface tension can be measured without contact.

Abstract

We present contactless atomic-force microscopy measurements of the hydrodynamic interactions between a rigid sphere and an air bubble in water at the micro-scale. The size of the bubble is found to have a significant effect on the response due to the long-range capillary deformation of the air-water interface. To rationalize the experimental data, we develop a viscocapillary lubrication model accounting for the finite-size effect. The comparison between experiments and theory allows us to measure the air-water surface tension, without contact, paving the way towards robust contactless tensiometry of polluted air-water interfaces.