2012/04/17 by Stefan Karpitschka, Erik Dietrich, Karpitschka, Stefan +9
Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Minerals Flotation and Separation Techniques #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1204.3713
arxiv created 2012/04/17 · openalex publication_date 2012/04/17 · arxiv updated 2012/04/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The existence of surface nanobubbles has been previously suggested using various experimental techniques, including attenuated total reflection spectroscopy, quartz crystal microbalance, neutron reflectometry, and x-ray reflectivity, but all of these techniques provide a sole number to quantify the existence of gas over (usually) hundreds of square microns. Thus `nanobubbles' are indistinguishable from a `uniform gassy layer' between surface and liquid. Atomic force microscopy, on the other hand, does show the existence of surface nanobubbles, but the highly intrusive nature of the technique means that a uniform gassy layer could break down into nanobubbles due to the motion of the microscope's probe. Here we demonstrate optical visualisation of surface nanobubbles, thus validating their individual existence non-intrusively.