Rotation of a floating hydrophobic disk: influence of line tension

Abstract

The rotation of a sub-millimeter size disk over a water bath is reported. The origin of the rotation arises from the transfer of angular momentum from a plane wave diffracted by an asymmetrical picture printed on the disk. Because of its hydrophobic character, the viscous friction contribution to the rotational motion of the object floating on the air/liquid interface is weak. From the driving optical torque and the steady-state rotation, we measure the contribution of the line tension in the femto-Newton range.