Surface elastic constants of a soft solid

Soft Matter. 2018 Feb 14;14(6):916-920. doi: 10.1039/c7sm02431b. Epub 2018 Jan 31.

Abstract

Solid interfaces have intrinsic elasticity. However, in most experiments, this is obscured by bulk stresses. Through microscopic observations of the contact-line geometry of a partially wetting droplet on an anisotropically stretched substrate, we measure two surface-elastic constants that quantify the linear dependence of the surface stress of a soft polymer gel on its strain. With these two parameters, one can predict surface stresses for general deformations of the material in the linear-elastic limit.