High-Speed Interferometry Under Impacting Drops

Over the last decade the rapid advances in high-speed video technology, have opened up to study many multi-phase fluid phenomena, which tend to occur most rapidly on the smallest length-scales. One of these is the entrapment of a small bubble under a drop impacting onto a solid surface. Here we have gone from simply observing the presence of the bubble to detailed imaging of the formation of a lubricating air-disc under the drop center and its subsequent contraction into the bubble. Imaging the full shape-evolution of the air-disc has required μm and sub-μs space and time resolutions. Time-resolved 200 ns interferometry with monochromatic light, has allowed us to follow individual fringes to obtain absolute air-layer thicknesses, based on the eventual contact with the solid. We can follow the evolution of the dimple shape as well as the compression of the gas. The improved imaging has also revealed new levels of detail, like the nature of the first contact which produces a ring of micro-bubbles, highlighting the influence of nanometric surface roughness. Finally, for impacts of ultra-viscous drops we see gliding on ~100 nm thick rarified gas layers, followed by extreme wetting at numerous random spots.