title: Microfluidic motion for a direct investigation of the structural dynamics of glass-forming liquids.
abstract: Glass-forming liquids, polymer solutions, and biofluids have additional inertial and elastic macroscopic degrees of freedom that are related to the elasticity of the molecular coils and affect the determination of the structural dynamical parameters. In this work, we propose a new approach for the direct evaluation of the fundamental material parameters (viscosity, fragility, glass transition temperature) of a viscoelastic liquid in a capillary flow inside a microfluidic device. The proposed technique substantially reduces the complexity of the theoretical analysis and provides an evaluation of the most relevant functional parameters of the fluid dynamics. Moreover, the approach allows the investigation of localization phenomena in geometrical confined systems, such as those required in miniaturized devices.
authors.affiliation: NNL, National Nanotechnology Laboratory of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia (INFM), c/o Dip. Ingegneria dell'Innovazione, Universitá di Lecce, via Arnesano, I-73100 Lecce, Italy. ilenia.viola@unile.it
authors.forename: Ilenia
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Viola
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pisignano
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cingolani
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gigli
mesh_terms: D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011140:Polyurethanes / Q000737:chemistry; D012212:Rheology
chemical_list: D011140:Polyurethanes