Superhydrophobic Microtextures
Lithography can be used to create a surface with a regular pattern on a micro scale. The surface can be made hydrophobic, and then the spaces between the raised patterns on the surface infused with a liquid. The result is a SLIPS surface. This is shown schematically above and in image (b) below. Image (a) below showns a microtextured surface without an infused liquid, and image (c) shows the same surface after infusion with oil.
The SLIPS surface is very slippery when tilted. The video below shows a water drop sliding on a SLIPS surface tilted 0.8°. Even though this is a very small tilt angle, we see that the drop moves very easily.
Publications
- Slippery pre-suffused surfaces, A. Lafuma and D. Quéré, Europhys. Lett. 96 (2011), 56001
- Droplet mobility on lubricant-impregnated surfaces, J.D. Smith, R. Dhiman, S. Anand, E. Reza-Garduo, R.E. Cohen, G.H. McKinley and K.K. Varanasi, Soft Matter 9 (2013), 1772-1780
- Evaporation of Sessile Droplets on Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS), J.H. Guan, G.G. Wells, B. Xu, G. McHale, D. Wood, J. Martin and S. Stuart-Cole, Langmuir 31 (2015), 11781-11789