Research activities
My research focuses on flows in the presence of a free surface, such as a water-air interface. These flows are often driven by capillarity (surface tension) and lead to instabilities and singularities, as encountered for the breakup of a liquid jet into smaller drops. Recently, we resolved the 'inverse' case, of a bubble breaking up into two separate bubbles inside a liquid - the controversial history of this problem is discussed in a nice article in Nature Physics. Other research topics are levitated (Leidenfrost) drops and surface nanobubbles.
I am particularly interested in the dynamics of contact lines, occuring whenever the liquid-air interface is also in contact with a hydrophobic solid surface. These exhibit interesting flow behaviors - e.g. when rain drops run down a window. Besides fundamental interest, contact line instabilities are often a nuisance in industrial applications like coating and small-scale imaging technologies.
- Winner of Education Award Applied Physics 2012, University of Twente, March 2012.
- Member of the JA@UT, the Young Academy of the University of Twente.
- 24 March: Je springt van de hoge duikplank en landt met een harde klap op het water. Wat veroorzaakt die klap? (Wetenschappelijke Scheurkalender 2012).
