Shapes and Fissility of Highly Charged and Rapidly Rotating Levitated Liquid Drops.

L Liao,R J A Hill

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.114501

Abstract

We use diamagnetic levitation to investigate the shapes and the stability of free electrically charged and spinning liquid drops of volume ∼1 ml. In addition to binary fission and Taylor cone-jet fission modes observed at low and high charge density, respectively, we also observe an unusual mode which appears to be a hybrid of the two. Measurements of the angular momentum required to fission a charged drop show that nonrotating drops become unstable to fission at the amount of charge predicted by Lord Rayleigh. This result is in contrast to the observations of most previous experiments on fissioning charged drops, which typically exhibit fission well below Rayleigh's limit.

Highlights

The liquid drop forms the basis of models of physics on an extraordinary range of length scales, from the astronomical scale down to the scale of the atomic nucleus
Uncharged liquid drops continue to deform into a capsule-like shape and a double-lobed, “dumbbell” shape, as the angular momentum is further increased, fissioning by scission of the dumbbell neck as equilibrium is lost [10]
A nonspinning, surface-charged free drop, on the other hand, remains spherical unless the charge exceeds a critical amount, whereupon it fissions by a “Coulomb explosion”: a sharp peak forms on the surface, known as a Taylor cone, which emits a fine jet of microscopic daughter drops [11]

Summary

Introduction

The liquid drop forms the basis of models of physics on an extraordinary range of length scales, from the astronomical scale down to the scale of the atomic nucleus. Uncharged liquid drops continue to deform into a capsule-like shape and a double-lobed, “dumbbell” shape, as the angular momentum is further increased, fissioning by scission of the dumbbell neck as equilibrium is lost [10].

Results

Conclusion