Focusing Water Waves with a Meniscus

Two easily observed surface tension phenomena are water ripples and the meniscus that forms at boundaries. Despite much interest in the two individually, studies detailing their interactions have been scarce until recent years. Using experimental techniques, we investigate the meniscus's effect on the scattering of water waves. We set up a simple system as our first study: plane waves incident upon a circular cylinder surrounded by a pinned menisci of varying heights. Our findings show that a meniscus's presence greatly affects the resulting wave field pattern, focusing the waves behind the cylinder into the otherwise shadowed region. We additionally discuss how the frequency of the waves and cylinder's radius affects our system.