Thermophoretically induced large-scale deformations around microscopic heat centers
arXiv:1604.05527 · doi:10.1063/1.4948729
Abstract
Selectively heating a microscopic colloidal particle embedded in a soft elastic matrix is a situation of high practical relevance. For instance, during hyperthermic cancer treatment, cell tissue surrounding heated magnetic colloidal particles is destroyed. Experiments on soft elastic polymeric matrices suggest a very long-ranged, non-decaying radial component of the thermophoretically induced displacement fields around the microscopic heat centers. We theoretically confirm this conjecture using a macroscopic hydrodynamic two-fluid description. Both, thermophoretic and elastic effects are included in this theory. Indeed, we find that the elasticity of the environment can cause the experimentally observed large-scale radial displacements in the embedding matrix. Additional experiments confirm the central role of elasticity. Finally, a linearly decaying radial component of the displacement field in the experiments is attributed to the finite size of the experimental sample. Similar results are obtained from our theoretical analysis under modified boundary conditions.
10 pages, 7 figures
References in corpus (7)
- Tuned, driven, and active soft matter
- Effects of particle distribution on mechanical properties of magneto-sensitive elastomers in a homogeneous magnetic field
- Buckling of paramagnetic chains in soft gels
- Structural control of elastic moduli in ferrogels and the importance of non-affine deformations
- Tunable dynamic response of magnetic gels: impact of structural properties and magnetic fields
- Tailoring superelasticity of soft magnetic materials
- Thermophoretically induced large-scale deformations around microscopic heat centers