Université de Fribourg

Colloidal fibers as structurant for worm-like micellar solutions

Zanchetta, Giuliano ; Mirzaagha, Shadi ; Guida, Vincenzo ; Zonfrilli, Fabio ; Caggioni, Marco ; Grizzuti, Nino ; Pasquino, Rossana ; Trappe, Veronique

In: Colloid and Polymer Science, 2018, vol. 296, no. 8, p. 1379–1385

We investigate the rheological properties of a simplified version of a liquid detergent composed of an aqueous solution of the linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) surfactant, in which a small amount of fibers made of hydrogenated castor oil (HCO) is dispersed. At the concentration typically used in detergents, LAS is in a worm-like micellar phase exhibiting a Maxwellian behavior. The...

Université de Fribourg

Viscoelasticity of nematic liquid crystals at a glance

Giavazzi, Fabio ; Crotti, Stefano ; Speciale, Antonio ; Serra, Francesca ; Zanchetta, Giuliano ; Trappe, Véronique ; Buscaglia, Marco ; Bellini, Tommaso ; Cerbino, Roberto

In: Soft Matter, 2014, vol. 10, no. 22, p. 3938–3949

Polarised microscopy is shown to be a powerful alternative to light scattering for the determination of the viscoelasticity of aligned nematic liquid crystals. We perform experiments in a wide range of temperatures by using an adapted version of the recently introduced differential dynamic microscopy technique, which enables us to extract scattering information directly from the microscope...