Interfacial instabilities and wetting phenomena of phase separated colloid-polymer mixtures are addressed in this study. Colloidal particles offer certain advantages over molecular systems, due to their larger lengthscales and slower timescales. Moreover, the phenomena can be directly visualised using laser scanning confocal microscopy, and a perfect match with soft-lithography fabrication techniques can be exploited. In particular, we study the viscous fingering instability in three dimensions, focusing on the role of wetting conditions and of thermal fluctuations. Combined with results obtained by lattice Boltzmann simulations, we reveal that the cross-over of the meniscus in the direction across the channel thickness is controlled by the capillary and Peclet numbers, and viscosity contrast of the system. The curvature of the meniscus has a pronounced effect on the onset of the Saffman-Taylor instability, in which the formation of the viscous fingers is suppressed up to a certain threshold. Furthermore, we investigate a related contact line instability, which leads to entrainment and subsequent droplet pinch-off. A theoretical prediction for the onset of the instability is developed, which shows a good agreement with the experimental observations and yields a method to directly measure the slip length of the interface. The large thermal fluctuations of our interface play an important role in pinch-off events, leading to periodic emission of droplets of similar sizes. Finally, we study wetting phenomena at geometrically sculpted walls. We focus on the shape, the thickness and the radius of curvature of the adsorbed liquid film, and find good agreement with theory. Changing the curvature of the wedge from a flat surface to a capil- lary slit furthermore smoothly connects wetting behaviour and capillary condensation, again in qualitative agreement with theory. Non-equilibrium effects may interfere with the data and are difficult to rule out. We end with recommendations for future work.

Ce manuscrit présente les résultats d'expériences illustrant différentes manifestations de la présence de polymères dans un écoulement. Pour chacune d'elles, nous étudions l'interaction entre la structure microscopique et l'écoulement.Lorsqu'une goutte se détache d'un capillaire, la colonne de liquide liant la goutte au capillaire doit se rompre. Pour les liquides simples, l'amincissement suit des lois universelles bien établies. La dynamique de détachement d'une goutte de fluide complexe est très différente. Pour les solutions de polymères, après une phase de décroissance rapide du diamètre de cette colonne, il se forme un long filament cylindrique entre la goutte et le capillaire. Afin de mieux comprendre comment les polymères présents en solution donnent naissance à ce filament, nous avons observé leurs conformations au cours du détachement. Ces observations confirment que l'étirement des polymères est à l'origine du ralentissement du processus de détachement. Cependant, lors de l'amincissement du filament, la distribution des longueurs reste inchangée. Ce résultat inattendu, nous a amené à mettre en place une nouvelle méthode pour estimer la viscosité élongationnelle.D'autres expériences sont présentées, l'une porte sur un effet de déplétion qui apparait lors de l'écoulement confiné d'une solution de polymères, alors que l'autre porte sur l'écoulement instable d'une solution concentrée de polymères dans une conduite rectiligne. / This work considers the interaction between a flow field and the microscopic degrees of a freedom of a polymer solution. Different flow configurations were considered.Droplet pinch off, which occurs when a drop of liquid detaches from a capillary, can be strongly modified in the presence of polymers giving rise to long and slender filaments that thin slowly in time. We here study experimentaly the dynamics of necking and the conformations of polymers during the thinning of the neck. Our results show that the slow down of the thinning dynamics is the result of polymer stretching. Moreover, during the filament thinning, the polymer length distribution remains the same. This result is unexpected and led us to introduce a new method to estimate the extensionnal viscosity which represents the polymer solution resistance to stretching.In a second flow configuration, we have observed that depletion of polymer molecules near a surface occurs when a bead approaches a plate in a polymer solution.