Bubbles enable volumetric negative compressibility in metastable elastocapillary systems

Davide Caprini, Francesco Battista, Paweł Zajdel, Giovanni Di Muccio, Carlo Guardiani, Benjamin Trump, Marcus Carter, Andrey A. Yakovenko, Eder Amayuelas, Luis Bartolomé, Simone Meloni (), Yaroslav Grosu (), Carlo Massimo Casciola () and Alberto Giacomello ()
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Davide Caprini: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Francesco Battista: Sapienza Università di Roma
Paweł Zajdel: University of Silesia
Giovanni Di Muccio: Sapienza Università di Roma
Carlo Guardiani: Sapienza Università di Roma
Benjamin Trump: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Marcus Carter: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Andrey A. Yakovenko: Argonne National Laboratory
Eder Amayuelas: Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA)
Luis Bartolomé: Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA)
Simone Meloni: Università degli Studi di Ferrara
Yaroslav Grosu: Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA)
Carlo Massimo Casciola: Sapienza Università di Roma
Alberto Giacomello: Sapienza Università di Roma

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Although coveted in applications, few materials expand when subject to compression or contract under decompression, i.e., exhibit negative compressibility. A key step to achieve such counterintuitive behaviour is the destabilisations of (meta)stable equilibria of the constituents. Here, we propose a simple strategy to obtain negative compressibility exploiting capillary forces both to precompress the elastic material and to release such precompression by a threshold phenomenon – the reversible formation of a bubble in a hydrophobic flexible cavity. We demonstrate that the solid part of such metastable elastocapillary systems displays negative compressibility across different scales: hydrophobic microporous materials, proteins, and millimetre-sized laminae. This concept is applicable to fields such as porous materials, biomolecules, sensors and may be easily extended to create unexpected material susceptibilities.

Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-49136-w

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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49136-w

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