Optical Freeze-Framing and Analysis of Nanofluidic Behaviors in Elastomeric Nanocavities

The behavior of liquid-phase polymer in nanoscale cavities are essential and important to many technological processes. The level of our understanding on them, however, is still limited. This paper reports a new photofluidic technique to capture, or “freeze-frame”, the capillary rise of polymer into elastomeric nanocavities with nanoscopic resolutions and reveals nonlinear and unstable natures of the polymeric capillary effect. Based on the results, a nanofluidic model is also proposed to explain the anomalies. Both the freeze-framing technique and the established model will open new pathways to analyze and utilize nanofluidics.