Starbursts and wispy drops in surfactants spreading on gels

Physics – Fluid Dynamics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We report a phase diagram for a novel instability seen in drops of nonionic surfactant solution (Triton X-305) spreading on a viscoelastic agar gel substrate. This system allows us to examine the effect of varying the fluidity of an aqueous substrates. The instabilities of the surfactant drop are strongly influenced by the substrate fluidity. For the lowest agar concentration (below the gelation point), the drop breaks into approximately 10 thin spreading arms in a starburst formation. For substrates just below the gelation transition, the central drop remains but is decorated with thin, branching wisps. Above the gelation transition, the surfactant drops are circular as for a solid substrate. The phenomenon is only weakly dependent on the surfactant concentration, which has been varied over three orders of magnitude and across the critical micellar concentration. This work has been supported under NSF Grant DMR-0244498.

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