Capillary bridges between two partially wetting soft plates

Capillary bridges, i.e. liquid droplets in contact with two solid substrates, play an important role in phenomena such as adhesion of insects to a wall surface. When the plate separation is small relative to the contact radius of the bridge, the force is attractive (adhesion) for liquid contact angles smaller than 90 degrees due to negative Laplace pressure, and repulsive for liquid contact angles larger than 90 degrees. We investigate capillary bridges between two partially wetting soft-layer-coated plates. We demonstrate how the softness modifies the capillary force on two soft plates. In particular, we show that varying the softness can alter the liquid contact angle, and hence so does the magnitude of the force.