Capillarity in soft matter: Droplets, bubbles and particles
Abstract
Capillarity, the study of interfaces between immiscible media, was founded in the early 19th century, yet it continues to drive discovery at the frontier of soft matter research. Interfacial tension governs an extraordinary range of phenomena across length and time scales‑ from the wetting of droplets, to the nucleation of bubbles, to the self‑assembly of particles at fluid interfaces. This editorial briefly addresses various capillarity‑relevant phenomena in representative soft matter systems‑ droplets, bubbles, and particles‑ and calls for closer interdisciplinary collaboration in theory, experimentation, and numerical methods to unravel the rich underlying physics and harness interfacial phenomena for next‑generation technologies.
Document Type: Editorial
Cited as: Xie, Q. Capillarity in soft matter: Droplets, bubbles and particles. Capillarity, 2026, 20(1): 1‑2. https://doi.org/10.46690/capi.2026.07.01
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46690/capi.2026.07.01Keywords:
Capillarity, droplet, bubble, particleReferences
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Copyright (c) 2026 Qingguang Xie
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