Disordered systems under confinement may show very specific properties, such as enhanced density fluctuations or flow instabilities.
Azaima Razali (Bristol) and Christopher Fullerton (Bath, now in Montpellier) have performed experiments and simulations on the effect of extreme confinement in colloidal gels and their work (to which I have the pleasure to add my contribution) has just been published in Soft Matter.
The notable result is that while gelation is often employed in bulk systems in order to slow down sedimentation, in strongly confined systems the opposite appears to be true, with sedimentation facilitated by the formation of a percolating network.
The full article can be found here:
Francesco Turci 