… also known as the ‘splash lab’, here we study drops in experiments that are both fundamental and relevant to industry. From raindrops to coatings, ink-jets to sprinklers, ferrofluids to dairy products – we study processes in which drops land or spread, often in contact with interesting surfaces. The lab is home to our high-speed camera facilities, and features a chamber to control atmospheric humidity and temperature. See our Youtube channel for some movies.

Janus spheres are micro- and nanoscale colloids which have some asymmetry in their physical and/or chemical properties. Commonly, the sphere’s two hemispheres have different surface chemistries, e.g. hydrophilic and hydrophobic. Asymmetric particles (such as Janus spheres) are increasingly of interest because of their possible uses as building blocks for new self-assembled and even reconfigurable materials. More broadly, we can use the tools of soft condensed matter to study large collections of asymmetric particles.