When you include liquid drops into a soft solid like a gel, the anticipation is that it will become softer. But if you keep reducing the radius of the drops, then there comes a time when it will actually become stiffer.
This rather counter-intuitive result was published a recent paper in Nature Physics (Published online on 15 December 2014) by collaborating scientists from three countries. The phenomenon occurs only when the radius of the droplets become smaller than the elastocapillary length (the ratio of surface tension of the liquid solid interface and the young's modulus of the solid).
Besides designing new composites, the result has implications in biology where such phenomena may be rampant, without being noticed by biologists.
This rather counter-intuitive result was published a recent paper in Nature Physics (Published online on 15 December 2014) by collaborating scientists from three countries. The phenomenon occurs only when the radius of the droplets become smaller than the elastocapillary length (the ratio of surface tension of the liquid solid interface and the young's modulus of the solid).
Besides designing new composites, the result has implications in biology where such phenomena may be rampant, without being noticed by biologists.
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