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Penger Tong

Publications and source records attributed to Penger Tong.

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State-dependent friction for a moving liquid contact line over rough solid surfaces

Solid friction between two rough surfaces is often observed to increase logarithmically over time due to contact creeping. An intriguing question is whether a similar aging effect occurs in contact line (CL) friction over rough substrates. Here, we report a systematic experimental study of CL friction using a hanging-fiber atomic force microscope (AFM) to measure the frictional force as a liquid CL moves across a fiber surface with different coatings under a well-controlled time protocol. State- (or time-)dependent CL friction is observed for the fiber surface with different textures in both the advancing and receding directions. The experimental findings are explained by a phenomenological model that links mesoscale CL friction to the microscopic relaxation of metastable air bubbles or liquid droplets trapped in the interstices of a rough surface. This model offers a general aging mechanism relevant to a wide range of liquid-solid interfaces.

cond-mat.soft

Activity-assisted barrier-crossing of self-propelled colloids over parallel microgrooves

We report a systematic study of the dynamics of self-propelled particles (SPPs) over a one-dimensional periodic potential landscape, which is fabricated on a microgroove-patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate. From the measured non-equilibrium probability density function of the SPPs, we find that the escape dynamics of the slow-rotating SPPs across the potential landscape can be described by an effective potential, once the self-propulsion force is included into the potential under the fixed angle approximation. This work demonstrates that the parallel microgrooves provide a versatile platform for a quantitative understanding of the interplay among the self-propulsion force, spatial confinement by the potential landscape, and thermal noise, as well as its effects on activity-assisted escape dynamics and transport of the SPPs.

cond-mat.soft

Correlated dynamics of weakly charged silica spheres at an air-water interface

Optical microscopy and multi-particle tracking are used to investigate the spatially correlated motion of weakly charged silica spheres at an air-water interface for different area fraction $n$ occupied by the particles. When the area fraction is very small, e.g. $n=0.03$, the correlation function along the line joining the centers of particles $D_{rr}$ decays with inter-particle distance $R$ as $1/R^{0.86\pm0.02}$, and the function perpendicular to this line $D_{θθ}$ decays with $R$ as $1/R^{1.45\pm0.03}$, which differs from the results of [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 176001 (2006)] with low surface viscosity (where $D_{rr}\propto 1/R$, $D_{θθ}\propto 1/R^2$). We argue that the differences arise from the Coulomb interaction between particles. The Coulomb interaction enhances the correlated motion of particles. Experimental results show that with the increase of $n$, the decay rate of $D_{rr}$ and $D_{θθ}$ with $R$ decreases and the cross-correlation enhances for the Coulomb interaction increases. The Coulomb interaction between colloidal particles should serve as an effective surface viscoelastical role in our system. With the scaled separation $\frac R {d}(\frac {η_{w}d} {η_{es,2p}})^{3/2}$, the correlated motions for various values of $n$ and different particles can be scaled onto a single master curve, where $d$ is particles' diameter, $η_{w}$ is the viscosity of the water, and $η_{es,2p}$ is the effective surface viscosity whose measurements agree well with that of one-particle surface viscosity $η_{es,1p}$. The effective surface viscosity $η_{es,2p}$ as a function of the area fraction $n$ for different silica spheres is presented.

cond-mat.soft