Fig. 2.

Micropost configuration enables the high strain rates and strain in the flow, accompanied by the concentration fluctuations in wormlike micelles. The high stretching and flow alignment in the micropost array increase the flexibility of the micelles, and hence lower the bending modulus of the micelles. It becomes energetically favorable for a pair of adjacent micelles to merge when they flow through the confined microposts, promoting the formation of junctions and cross-links and leading to entangled, branched, and multiconnected FISPs.