Elasticity of an interfacial particle raft
  We study the collective behaviour of a close packed monolayer of non-Brownian particles at a fluid-liquid interface. Such a particle raft forms a two-dimensional elastic solid and can support anisotropic stresses and strains, e.g. it buckles in uniaxial compression and cracks in tension. We characterise this solid in terms of a Young's modulus and Poisson ratio derived from simple theoretical considerations and show the validity of these estimates by using an experimental buckling assay to deduce the Young's modulus. 
Dominic Vella, Pascale Aussillous and L. Mahadevan