Role of the channel geometry on the bubble pinch-off in flow-focusing devices

The formation of bubbles by flow focusing of a gas and a liquid in a rectangular channel is shown to depend strongly on the channel aspect ratio. Bubble breakup consists in a slow linear 2D collapse of the gas thread, ending in a fast 3D pinch-off. The 2D collapse is predicted to be stable against perturbations of the gas-liquid interface, whereas the 3D pinch-off is unstable, causing bubble polydispersity. During 3D pinch-off, a scaling wm∼τ1/3 between the neck width wm and the time τ before breakup indicates that breakup is driven by the inertia of both gas and liquid, not by capillarity.