Fig. 4: Monitoring of the plastron stability.
From: Fast capillary waves on an underwater superhydrophobic surface
The observation of the relative change in the phase speed of plastronic waves with respect to time allows to monitor the gas exchange taking place between the plastron and the water. The plastron is actuated with successive AM pulses y(t) with a given pulse repetition period (PRP). The recording is done over a duration of 4 minutes, for a total of 49 acquisitions in the case of a 5 seconds PRP (a) and 13 acquisitions in the case of a 20 seconds PRP (b). On completion of recording, the relative change in the phase speed significantly differentiates between the two explored configurations, in blue for a gas-undersaturated water and in red for a gas-supersaturated water, revealing the spontaneous dissolution and inflation, respectively, of the superhydrophobic plastron under monitoring. A similar behaviour observed in both cases of PRP indicates that the US actuation and the propagating waves do not accelerate the gas exchange processes. The parameter n refers to the number of repetitions for each experimental configuration. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
