Measuring soap bubble thickness with color matching

Abstract

This department welcomes brief communications reporting new demonstrations, laboratory equipment, techniques, or materials of interest to teachers of physics. Notes on new applications of older apparatus, measurements supplementing data supplied by manufacturers, information which, while not new, is not generally known, procurement information, and news about apparatus under development may be suitable for publication in this section. Neither the American Journal of Physics nor the Editors assume responsibility for the correctness of the information presented. Manuscripts should be submitted using the web-based system that can be accessed via the American

Charging of a single soap bubble

“…Based on colour matching of interference pattern (fringes) it can be estimated that film thickness of bubble top is 500-900 nm in Figure 2.a, and just before bursting (Figure 2.b) is less than 200 nm [4,6]. These are the values typical for soap bubbles [4][5][6]8].…”

“…Due to the phenomenon of gravitational drainage and evaporation, the film thickness changes over time. For these reasons, the bubbles are much thinner on the top than on the bottom [4,5,6].…”

What is the Shape of an Air Bubble on a Liquid Surface?

“…The above equations completely specify the shape of the outer surface of the meniscus. Note that, in equations (24), (26) and (27), equations (19) and (20) have been used to eliminate dz ′ 0 /dθ and dz ′ 1 /dθ. Additionally, although the inner integrals in equations (24) and (27) can be calculated analytically (they are given by equation 25), the outer integrals, as well as the integral in equation 26, must be evaluated numerically.…”

“…In addition to these better-known sectors, the potential use of bubbles and films has been recently demonstrated in emerging technological domains such as micro [3][4][5][6][7] and nanotechnologies [8][9][10]. Soap bubbles and films have been studied for many years [11,12], with more recent studies concerning their organisation [13,14], electrification [5,15], magnetization [16], wetting [18][19][20], stability [21][22][23], aerodynamics [24] and their mechanical [25] and optical properties [26].…”

Mapping of the Marangoni effect in soap films using Young's double-slit experiment

“…Relative variations in the 10 −17 to the 10 −21 range have already been reported [20,21]. Optical interferometry has also been used in the measurement of soap film thicknesses in the 10 µm-200 nm range [22][23][24], with a precision of 20 nm. Among all these interferometry techniques, Young's double slit experiment is one of the most popular, fascinating and easy to set up technique.…”