Capillary aging of the contacts between glass spheres and a quartz resonator surface

The strength of the contacts between small glass spheres and the surface of a quartz crystal resonator has been probed based on the increase of resonance frequency induced upon sphere contact. The acoustic interaction between the sphere and the plate is modeled as a low-frequency coupled resonance; the dependence of the resonant parameters on overtone order lends support to this model. After exposing the sample to humid air and drying it again, the contact strength increases at least tenfold due to capillary forces--we observe a hysteretic form of the sand-castle effect. Repeated wet-dry cycles reveal logarithmic capillary aging with time. The experiments suggest that the drying of the liquid bridges leads to a contraction of small voids in the contact zone, subsequently increasing cohesion.