Smart, Living & Active Matter - Leiden

Leiden Institute of Physics

About us

The SLAM - Smart, Living, & Active Matter - initiative unites theory and experimental groups of the Leiden Institute of Physics. It currently gathers the groups of Luca Giomi, Louise Jawerth, Daniela Kraft, Martin van Hecke, Silke Henkes and Alexandre Morin.

Read more about the research of the groups »

SLAM symposium on Active Solids

The SLAM symposium on Active Solids which took place on June 4th was a succes!

To the program »

Coming up next

2024-09-12 - 14:15 @ Gorter room

SLAM Seminar: Savannah Gowen (Martin's guest)

Title: Detecting Local Pressure Gradients in the Viscous Fingering Instability

Abstract: Fluid fingers form when a lower viscosity fluid penetrates a higher viscosity one within a confined geometry such as in the gap between two parallel circular glass plates. This system has become iconic to the study of pattern formation because the elegant branching patterns that form are similar to those seen pervasively in nature. However, as these fingers grow their morphology is less well understood. For both miscible and immiscible fluid pairs the growth dynamics change after the instability onset, and global pattern features are governed by the viscosity ratio. Using a novel experimental technique we observe a new length scale related to the penetration depth of local pressure gradients both behind and in front of the interface at late times. We characterize this length scale and show the surprising validity of a simple model that was previously proposed to describe late-time pattern growth.

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