Healing Ruptured 2D Crystals via Non-equilibrium Composition States.

Butenko, Alexander V; Mayzlin, Daniel; Mastai, Yitzhak; Deutsch, Moshe; Lee, Daeyeon; Sloutskin, Eli · Nano Lett · 2025

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Crystalline mixed oil-surfactant monolayers temperature-controllably form at surfactant-decorated oil-water interfaces and, for many surfactant-oil combinations, govern emulsion-droplet division, shape evolution, and related phenomena. While the equilibrium behavior of these ≈2 nm thick interfacial crystals (ICs) has been extensively investigated, their response to perturbations, relevant to real-world applications, remains largely unexplored. We probe how ICs respond to rapid expansion and uncover unconventional non-equilibrium molecular composition states, impacting emulsion stability and interfacial permeability.