History

2026

March

• Jana, S., Kolinski, J., Lohse, D., & Sanjay, V. Impacting spheres: from liquid drops to elastic beads. Soft Matter, 22, 2226-2236 (2026), selected as the cover article.

February

• Dixit, A. K., Zhao, C., Zaleski, S., Lohse, D., & Sanjay, V. Holes in Sheets: Double-Threshold Rupture of Draining Liquid Films. Phys. Rev. Lett., 136, 084001 (2026).

• Ayush Dixit presents “Simulating Respiratory Droplet Formation: The Role of Non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics,” showing via large-scale simulations that viscoelastic respiratory-fluid effects are essential for accurate droplet-size predictions in airborne transmission models. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFP5K9i8ah8

January

• Díaz, D., Bhargava, A. S., Walz, F., Sharifi, A., Summaly, S., Berger, R., Kappl, M., Butt, H.-J., Lohse, D., Willers, T., Sanjay, V., & Vollmer, D. Stood-up Drop to Determine Receding Contact Angles. Soft Matter, 22, 657-667 (2026).

2025

CoMPhy Lab at Durham University

Since July 1st, 2025, the CoMPhy Lab has been based at Durham University, UK, in the Condensed Matter Physics section of the Department of Physics.

December

• Demirkır, Ç., Yang, R., Bashkatov, A., Sanjay, V., Lohse, D., & Krug, D. To jump or not to jump: Adhesion and viscous dissipation dictate the detachment of coalescing wall-attached bubbles. Phys. Rev. Fluids, 10, 123602 (2025).

November

• Jnandeep Talukdar won the KHMW Young Talent Graduation Award for Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science 2025 for his master’s thesis on fundamental research in droplet formation. Thesis: Singularities with Surfactants

September

• Saini, M., Sanjay, V., Saade, Y., Lohse, D., & Popinet, S. Implementation of integral surface tension formulations in a volume of fluid framework and their applications to Marangoni flows. J. Comput. Phys., 542, 114348 (2025).

August

• Mclauchlan, J., Walker, J. S., Sanjay, V., Jalaal, M., Reid, J. P., Squires, A. M., & Souslov, A. Bouncing microdroplets on hydrophobic surfaces. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 122, e2507309122 (2025).

July

• Saumili Jana received the award for best master’s thesis from IIT Kharagpur. Thesis: Retract or Collapse? The Role of Viscosity and Viscoelasticity on Bubble Dynamics

June

• Jnandeep Talukdar graduated with a master’s degree (Cum Laude - the highest grade in Dutch master’s degree) from University of Twente. Thesis: Singularities with Surfactants

May

• Bashkatov, A., Bürkle, F., Demirkır, Ç., Ding, W., Sanjay, V., Babich, A., Yang, X., Mutschke, G., Czarske, J., Lohse, D., et al. Electrolyte droplet spraying in H2 bubbles during water electrolysis under normal and microgravity conditions. Nat. Commun., 16, 4580 (2025).

• Dixit, A., Oratis, A., Zinelis, K., Lohse, D., & Sanjay, V. Viscoelastic Worthington Jets and Droplets Produced by Bursting Bubbles. J. Fluid Mech., 1010, A2 (2025).

April

• Vatsal Sanjay awarded the Ammodo Science Fellowship. His research will focus on understanding fluid dynamics in fungal networks—investigating how these vast underground systems transport water, nutrients, and genetic information across ecosystems.

March

• Prof. Detlef Lohse discusses the people, questions, and experiments that shaped his work in fluid dynamics in The Living Histories Series.

• Sanjay, V., & Lohse, D. Unifying theory of scaling in drop impact: Forces & maximum spreading diameter. Published in Physical Review Letters.

• Hybrid online/offline course: High-Fidelity Simulations Using Basilisk C in Madrid, Spain (March 10-13). Computational fluid dynamics with hands-on coding sessions.

February

• Sanjay, V., Zhang, B., Lv, C., & Lohse, D. J. Fluid Mech., 1004, A6 (2025) selected as the cover article.

• Milan Sent graduated with a bachelor’s degree from University of Twente. Thesis: Spinning Pizza

2024

December

• Balasubramanian, A. G., Sanjay, V., Jalaal, M., Vinuesa, R., & Tammisola, O. J. Fluid Mech., 1001, A9 (2024). selected as the cover article.

November

• Vatsal Sanjay recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer 2023 by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics for his contributions to the peer review process.

May

• Vatsal Sanjay awarded the KIVI Hoogendoorn Fluid Mechanics Award 2023 for his PhD thesis “Viscous Free-Surface Flows”. The award ceremony took place at the Burgers Symposium on 29–30 May 2024 in Lunteren.