Annie Colin

Yielding and Flow in Adhesive and Nonadhesive Concentrated Emulsions

The nonlinear rheological response of soft glassy materials is addressed experimentally by focusing on concentrated emulsions where interdroplet attraction is tuned through varying the surfactant content. Velocity profiles are recorded using ultrasonic velocimetry simultaneously to global rheological data in the Couette geometry. Our data show that nonadhesive and adhesive emulsions have radically different flow behaviors in the vicinity of yielding: while the flow remains homogeneous in the nonadhesive emulsion and the Herschel-Bulkley model for a yield stress fluid describes the data very accurately, the adhesive system displays shear localization and does not follow a simple constitutive equation, suggesting that the mechanisms involved in yielding transitions are not universal.

DNA Intercalation in Neutral Multilamellar Membranes: Experiments and Theory

We report both an experimental and a theoretical work on the effect of confinement on a biological polymer (DNA) incorporated to multilamellar phase. We can see that even when no electrostatic interaction are involved this semi-flexible polymer can be incorporated in between the membranes. X-ray provides experimental evidence for the existence of a mixed DNA/Phospholipid structure. The nature of the DNA ordering is briefly described. A theoretical model is developed to describe the phase diagram. We emphasize the role of the isotropic/nematic transition of the DNA molecules to explain the ability to confine DNA in membranes.