Chain-reaction cascades in surfactant monolayer buckling

A. Gopal; V. A. Belyi; H. Diamant; T. A. Witten; K. Y. C. Lee

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arXiv · cond-mat/0409147

Chain-reaction cascades in surfactant monolayer buckling

A. Gopal·V. A. Belyi·H. Diamant·T. A. Witten·K. Y. C. Lee

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Abstract

Certain surfactant monolayers at the water-air interface have been found to undergo, at a critical surface pressure, a dynamic instability involving multiple long folds of micron width. We exploit the sharp monolayer translations accompanying folding events to acquire, using a combination of fluorescence microscopy and digital image analysis, detailed statistics concerning the folding dynamics. The motions have a broad distribution of magnitudes and narrow, non-Gaussian distributions of angles and durations. The statistics are consistent with the occurrence of cooperative cascades of folds, implying an autocatalytic process uncommon in the context of mechanical instability.

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A. Gopal, V. A. Belyi, H. Diamant, T. A. Witten, K. Y. C. Lee. 2004-09-07. Chain-reaction cascades in surfactant monolayer buckling. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0409147

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