Fast capillary waves on an underwater superhydrophobic surface

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2025-12

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en

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8

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Nature Communications, Volume 16, issue 1, pp. 1-8

Abstract

The propagation of interfacial waves in free and constrained conditions, such as deep and shallow water, has been broadly studied over centuries. It is a common event that anyone can witness, while contemplating the ocean waves washing ashore. As a complementary configuration, this work introduces waves propagating on an interface restricted by its pinning to the solid microstructures of an underwater superhydrophobic surface. The latter has the ability to stabilize a well-defined microscale gas layer, called a plastron, trapped between the water and the solid phase. The acoustic radiation force produced with focused MHz ultrasound successfully triggers kHz “plastronic waves”, i.e., capillary waves travelling on a plastron’s gas-water interface. The exposed waves possess interesting features, i.e., (i) a high propagation speed up to 45 times faster than conventional deep water capillary waves of comparable wavelength and (ii) a relation of the propagation speed with the geometry of the microstructures. Based on this and on the observed variation of wave speed over time in conditions of gas-undersaturated or -supersaturated water, the usefulness of the plastronic waves for the non-destructive monitoring of the plastron’s stability and the spontaneous air diffusion is eventually demonstrated.

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| openaire: EC/HE/101062409/EU//SuperElectro

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Fauconnier, M, Karunakaran, B, Drago-Gonzalez, A, Wong, W S Y, Ras, R H A & Nieminen, H J 2025, ' Fast capillary waves on an underwater superhydrophobic surface ', Nature Communications, vol. 16, no. 1, 1568, pp. 1-8 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-55907-w