Juan V. Escobar

Correlation between nanosecond X-ray flashes and stick–slip friction in peeling tape

Relative motion between two contacting surfaces can produce visible light, called triboluminescence. This concentration of diffuse mechanical energy into electromagnetic radiation has previously been observed to extend even to X-ray energies. Here we report that peeling common adhesive tape in a moderate vacuum produces radio and visible emission, along with nanosecond, 100-mW X-ray pulses that are correlated with stick–slip peeling events. For the observed 15-keV peak in X-ray energy, various models give a competing picture of the discharge process, with the length of the gap between the separating faces of the tape being 30 or 300 μm at the moment of emission. The intensity of X-ray triboluminescence allowed us to use it as a source for X-ray imaging. The limits on energies and flash widths that can be achieved are beyond current theories of tribology.

Casimir force between liquid metals

We present a theoretical calculation of the Casimir force between liquid metals at room temperature using as case studies mercury (Hg) and eutectic indium gallium (EInGa). The surface tension of the liquids creates surfaces of zero roughness that are truly equipotential, an ideal characteristic for Casimir force experiments. As we show the dielectric properties of Au, EInGa and Hg are very similar and the difference on the Casimir force between Au and EInGa and Au and Hg is less than 4%. Based on these results, a modification of the IUPUI experiment for detecting deviations of Newtonian gravity is proposed.

Measuring adhesion on rough surfaces using atomic force microscopy with a liquid probe

We present a procedure to perform and interpret pull-off force measurements during the jump-off-contact process between a liquid drop and rough surfaces using a conventional atomic force microscope. In this method, a micrometric liquid mercury drop is attached to an AFM tipless cantilever to measure the force required to pull this drop off a rough surface. We test the method with two surfaces: a square array of nanometer-sized peaks commonly used for the determination of AFM tip sharpness and a multi-scaled rough diamond surface containing sub-micrometer protrusions. Measurements are carried out in a nitrogen atmosphere to avoid water capillary interactions. We obtain information about the average force of adhesion between a single peak or protrusion and the liquid drop. This procedure could provide useful microscopic information to improve our understanding of wetting phenomena on rough surfaces.

Force of adhesion on supersolvophobic surfaces: The role of capillary necks.

We study theoretically the force of adhesion of pinned liquid drops in contact with supersolvophobic surfaces. We develop a method to calculate the contact and excess surface areas vs compression of the drops against surfaces characterized by an effective interfacial energy in the Cassie-Baxter wetting regime. We find that a 9° difference in contact angle can increase the force of adhesion by almost three orders of magnitude. We investigate the role that the inevitable formation of capillary necks has on this force, which has the same functional form of Derjaguins result for elastic solids. Our results suggest that measuring the force of adhesion directly on nearly perfectly solvophobic surfaces may be a more precise technique to quantify the effective interfacial energy than traditional contact angle measurements on macroscopic drops.

Dynamical Signatures of Collective Quality Grading in a Social Activity: Attendance to Motion Pictures

We investigate the laws governing people’s decisions and interactions by studying the collective dynamics of a well-documented social activity for which there exist ample records of the perceived quality: the attendance to movie theaters in the US. We picture the flows of attendance as impulses or “shocks” driven by external factors that in turn can create new cascades of attendances through direct recommendations whose effectiveness depends on the perceived quality of the movies. This corresponds to an epidemic branching model comprised of a decaying exponential function determining the time between cause and action, and a cascade of actions triggered by previous ones. We find that the vast majority of the ~3,500 movies studied fit our model remarkably well. From our results, we are able to translate a subjective concept such as movie quality into a probability of the deriving individual activity, and from it we build concrete quantitative predictions. Our analysis opens up the possibility of understanding other collective dynamics for which the perceived quality or appeal of an action is also known.

Intermittent dynamics in complex systems driven to depletion

When complex systems are driven to depletion by some external factor, their non-stationary dynamics can present an intermittent behaviour between relative tranquility and burst of activity whose consequences are often catastrophic. To understand and ultimately be able to predict such dynamics, we propose an underlying mechanism based on sharp thresholds of a local generalized energy density that naturally leads to negative feedback. We find a transition from a continuous regime to an intermittent one, in which avalanches can be predicted despite the stochastic nature of the process. This model may have applications in many natural and social complex systems where a rapid depletion of resources or generalized energy drives the dynamics. In particular, we show how this model accurately describes the time evolution and avalanches present in a real social system.

Simple scaling laws for the evaporation of droplets pinned on pillars: Transfer-rate- and diffusion-limited regimes

The evaporation of droplets can give rise to a wide range of interesting phenomena in which the dynamics of the evaporation are crucial. In this work, we find simple scaling laws for the evaporation dynamics of axisymmetric droplets pinned on millimeter-sized pillars. Different laws are found depending on whether evaporation is limited by the diffusion of vapor molecules or by the transfer rate across the liquid-vapor interface. For the diffusion-limited regime, we find that a mass-loss rate equal to 3/7 of that of a free-standing evaporating droplet brings a good balance between simplicity and physical correctness. We also find a scaling law for the evaporation of multicomponent solutions. The scaling laws found are validated against experiments of the evaporation of droplets of (1) water, (2) blood plasma, and (3) a mixture of water and polyethylene glycol, pinned on acrylic pillars of different diameters. These results shed light on the macroscopic dynamics of evaporation on pillars as a first step towards the understanding of other complex phenomena that may be taking place during the evaporation process, such as particle transport and chemical reactions.