Nano-scale studies of the tensile properties of liquids in an atomic force microscope

摘要

We report work in which cavitation is provoked in liquids which undergo stretching in an Atomic Force Microscope. As the liquid stretches between a solid sphere and a plane surface which are pulled apart, a rapid decrease of the separation distance between the surface and the sphere is recorded. The growth of a cavitation bubble within the stretching liquid is shown to result in sufficiently large negative pressures to account for this phenomenon.