Straight to zigzag transition of foam pseudo Plateau borders on textured surfaces

Abstract

The structure of liquid foams follows simple geometric rules formulated by Plateau 150 years ago. By placing such foam on a microtextured hydrophilic surface, we show that the bubble footprint exhibits a morphological transition. This transition concerns the liquid channels, also called pseudo Plateau borders, which are straight between vertices on a smooth surface. We demonstrate experimentally that for a sufficiently large roughness size compared to the width of the liquid channels, the footprint adopts a zigzag shape. This transition is associated with the absence of a wetting film between the pillars caused by capillary suction of the foam, observed by confocal microscopy. We rationalize the number of zigzag segments by a geometric distribution describing the observations made with the footprint perimeter and the mesh size of the asperities.