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Realizing Symmetry-Breaking Architectures in Soap Films

Nidhi Kaul1,∥, Luca Bergamasco2,∥, Hongwei Song1,∥, Thijs Varkevisser3,∥, Agnese Amati4, Gabriele Falciani2, Cees J. M. van Rijn3, Eliodoro Chiavazzo2,*, Indraneel Sen5,† et al.

Sylvestre Bonnet4,‡ and Leif Hammarström1,§

  • 1Department of Chemistry, Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, Box 523, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 2Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, Torino 10129, Italy
  • 3Nanotechnology and Microfluidics, Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 4Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 55, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands
  • 5Wasabi Innovations Ltd., Boulevard “Shipchenski Prohod” 18, Block A, Floor 3, Office 9, Slatina, Galaxy Business Center, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria

  • *Corresponding author: eliodoro.chiavazzo@polito.it
  • †Corresponding author: indraneel.sen@wasabi-innovations.eu
  • ‡Corresponding author: bonnet@chem.leidenuniv.nl
  • §Corresponding author: leif.hammarstrom@kemi.uu.se
  • ∥These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 028201 – Published 10 January, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.028201

Abstract

We show here that soap films—typically expected to host symmetric molecular arrangements—can be constructed with differing opposite surfaces, breaking their symmetry, and making them reminiscent of functional biological motifs found in nature. Using fluorescent molecular probes as dopants on different sides of the film, resonance energy transfer could be employed to confirm the lack of symmetry, which was found to persist on timescales of several minutes. Further, a theoretical analysis of the main transport phenomena involved yielded good agreement with the experimental observations.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 028201– Published 10 January, 2024
  • Received 31 October 2022
  • Revised 2 October 2023
  • Accepted 11 December 2023
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