Issue |
EPL
Volume 118, Number 5, June 2017
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 58003 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/118/58003 | |
Published online | 16 August 2017 |
Kinematical behaviour of capillary-driven nematic flow in polydimethylsiloxane microchannels: The effects of the dimensions of the channels
Department of Photonics, National Sun Yat-Sen University - 70 Lienhai Road, 80424 Kaohsiung, ROC
Received: 18 May 2017
Accepted: 19 July 2017
In this work we investigate the kinematical behaviour of capillary-driven nematic flows confined in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels. We show that the highly hydrophobic PDMS surfaces have affinity for the cyano-based nematogen 5CB, and are fairly lyophilic with the nematogen. The liquid crystal can flow into the PDMS microchannels without applying any external force. The kinematic behaviour of the nematic flow is sensitive to the geometry of the microchannels. The geometrical effects can be described using an analytic function, also known as the geometrical term. In theory, a scaling-down of the size of the channels will cause a drastic increase in the velocity of the nematic flow. We measured the velocities of the nematic flows in PDMS channels of different sizes. Our preliminary results show that the experimental measurement is highly consistent with the theoretical predictions.
PACS: 83.50.Ha – Flow in channels / 47.61.-k – Micro- and nano- scale flow phenomena / 47.57.Lj – Flows of liquid crystals
© EPLA, 2017
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