Dynamics in stretched nanocomposites

ATRC is a new ligth scattering technique that measures by holography the field amplitude scattered by a sample, and analyze its spatial correlations. ATRC outperforms other light scattering techniques like DLS, DWS and TRC. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) [1], diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS) [2] and time resolved correlation (TRC) [3] are well-established techniques for investigating the dynamics of a wide variety of systems in physics, chemistry, biology , and medicine. DLS and DWS consider the intensity time fluctuations of the scattered light, and study samples, whose dynamics are homogeneous in time. TRC considers the spatial fluctuations, and is able to study slow or temporally heterogeneous dynamics. We propose, in this work, to replace the TRC multi pixel detector by an holographic one, and to consider the spatial fluctuations of the field complex amplitude E as a new quantity of interest. We introduce thus a new tool called ATRC for Amplitude Time Resolved Correlation, which outperforms TRC and open new perspectives. Fig. 1. (a) TRCA typical setup. (b) Reconstructed image of a nanocomposite sample. Fig.1 (a) shows a simplified diagram of the TRCA setup. The sample S is illuminated by the laser beam L1. The light scattered by the sample is split by the beam splitter BS into two imaging paths, corresponding to cameras C1 and C2. Lens L made the image of the sample S on C1, which records the light intensity image I of S. On the other hand, the camera C2 records the interference pattern (i.e. the hologram) of the scattered light with the reference laser light L2, and the complex amplitude image E of S is calculated by holographic reconstruction. The optimize the detection sensitivity [4], holography is heterodyne [5] and off-axis. Fig.1 (b) shows the intensity reconstructed image (I = |E| 2) of a 30 × 10 mm 2 Styrene-Butadiene/Silica nanocom-posite sample, which is observed in reflection. Because 2 phase detection is used, both the +1 and-1 image of the sample are seen (right and left hand side images of Fig.1 (b)). To analyze the dynamic of the sample, TRC considers

We investigate the dynamics of thin sheets freely expanding in air. The sheets are produced by impacting a drop onto a small solid target or onto a cushion of liquid nitrogen, in order to suppress any dissipation process. To disentangle the role of capillary, viscous and elastic forces in the dynamics of the sheets several materials are used, whose rheological characteristics are tuned over several orders of magnitude: viscous liquids, viscoelastic Maxwell fluids and ultrasoft solids. In this talk, I will present our approaches to rationalize the spreading of sheets for viscous, viscoelastic and elastic materials by taking into account surface tension, elastic deformation and shear and biaxial viscous dissipations.

An original setup combining a very stable loading stage, an atomic force microscopy and an environmental chamber, allows to obtain very stable sub-critical fracture propagation in oxide glasses under controlled environment, and subsequently to finely characterize the nanometric roughness properties of the crack surfaces. In this presentation, I will focus, on one hand, on the special experimental care that has to be devoted to measure the metrological properties of such nanometric rough surface by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and, on the other hand, on the interest of analyses in terms of physical indicators related to the self-affine nature of the fracture surfaces. Due to the comparable nanometric amplitude of the surface roughness, the AFM tip size and the instrumental noise, it seems interesting to discuss about potential experimental artefacts highlighted by Lechenault et al. The roughness amplitude of several oxide glasses was shown to decrease as a function of the stress intensity factor, to be quite insensitive to the relative humidity and to increase with the content of network modifiers . These results will be discussed in terms on several modellings concerning the coupling between crack propagation, material heterogeneity, crack tip plastic deformation and water diffusion at the crack tip taking into account the self-affine nature of the fracture surfaces.

Gliadins are edible wheat storage proteins well known for their surface active properties. In this paper, we present experimental results on the interfacial properties of acidic solutions of gliadin studied over 5 decades of concentrations, from 0.001 to 110 g/L. Dynamic pendant drop tensiometry reveals that the surface pressure  of gliadin solutions builds up in a multistep process. The series of curves of the time evolution of collected at different bulk protein concentrations C can be merged onto a single master curve when  is plotted as a function of t where t is the time elapsed since the formation of the air/water interface and  is a shift parameter that varies with C as a power law with an exponent 2. The existence of such time-concentration superposition, which we evidence for the first time, indicates that the same mechanisms govern the surface tension evolution at all concentrations and are accelerated by an increase of the bulk concentration. The scaling of  with C is consistent with a kinetic of adsorption controlled by the diffusion of the proteins in the bulk. Moreover, we show that the proteins adsorption at the air/water interface is kinetically irreversible. Correlated evolutions of the optical and elastic properties of the interfaces, as probed by ellipsometry and surface dilatational rheology respectively, provide a consistent physical picture of the building up of the protein interfacial layer. A progressive coverage of the interface by the proteins occurs at low . This stage is followed, at higher , by conformational rearrangements of the protein film, which are identified by a strong increase of the dissipative viscoelastic properties of the film concomitantly with a peculiar evolution of its optical profile that we have rationalized. In the last stage, at even higher surface pressure, the adsorption is arrested; the optical profile is not modified while the elasticity of the interfacial layer dramatically increases with the surface pressure, presumably due to the film ageing.

A novel and simple method for the measurement of cloud point temperatures of solutions is presented. Cloud point determination , which is currently used to establish the phase diagrams of protein solutions, is indicative of proteins interactions and constitutes a useful tool for food products engineering. We describe a novel experimental setup that allows screening of a large number of physical-chemical conditions in one measurement and the determination of cloud point temperatures both above and below ambient temperature. We use a simple method to avoid solvent evaporation and condensation, so that the setup can be used for solutions prepared with a volatile solvent. We present the operating parameter range and the precision of the measurement. The optical properties of the system are calibrated with solutions of known transmittance, and the determination of cloud point temperatures is validated on a standard non-ionic surfactant solution. Finally, we demonstrate the efficiency of the method by determining the phase diagram of a wheat protein extract, soluble in a water/ethanol mixture. Complemented with differential scanning calorimetry measurements, the liquid-liquid phase transition can be determined up to a protein concentration of 250 g/L, a range inaccessible with conventional methods for this protein extract.