We report an experimental study of liquid drops moving against gravity, when placed on a vertically vibrating inclined plate, which is partially wetted by the drop. The frequency of vibrations ranges from 30 to 200 Hz, and, above a threshold in vibra
tion acceleration, drops experience an upward motion. We attribute this surprising motion to the deformations of the drop, as a consequence of an up or down symmetry breaking induced by the presence of the substrate. We relate the direction of motion to contact angle measurements. This phenomenon can be used to move a drop along an arbitrary path in a plane, without special surface treatments or localized forcing.
When a dilute polymer solution experiences capillary thinning, it forms an almost uniformly cylindrical thread, which we study experimentally. In the last stages of thinning, when polymers have become fully stretched, the filament becomes prone to in
stabilities, of which we describe two: A novel breathing instability, originating from the edge of the filament, and a sinusoidal instability in the interior, which ultimately gives rise to a blistering pattern of beads on the filament. We describe the linear instability with a spatial resolution of 80 nm in the disturbance amplitude. For sufficiently high polymer concentrations, the filament eventually separates out into a solid phase of entangled polymers, connected by fluid beads. A solid polymer fiber of about 100 nanometer thickness remains, which is essentially permanent.
When a solid plate is withdrawn from a liquid bath, a receding contact line is formed where solid, liquid, and gas meet. Above a critical speed $U_{cr}$, a stationary contact line can no longer exist and the solid will eventually be covered completel
y by a liquid film. Here we show that the bifurcation diagram of this coating transition changes qualitatively, from discontinuous to continuous, when decreasing the inclination angle of the plate. We show that this effect is governed by the presence of capillary waves, illustrating that the large scale flow strongly effects the maximum speed of dewetting.
