High‐performance droplet transport is crucial for diverse applications including biomedical detection, chemical micro‐reaction, and droplet microfluidics. Despite extensive progress, traditional passive and active strategies are restricted to limited liquid types, small droplet volume ranges, and poor biocompatibilities. Moreover, more challenges occur for biological fluids due to large viscosity and low surface tension. Here, a vibration‐actuated omni‐droplets rectifier (VAODR) consisting of slippery ratchet arrays fabricated by femtosecond laser and vibration platforms is reported. Through the relative competition between the asymmetric adhesive resistance originating from the lubricant meniscus on the VAODR and the periodic inertial driving force originating from isotropic vibration, the fast (up to ≈60 mm s−1), programmable, and robust transport of droplets is achieved for a large volume range (0.05–2000 µL, Vmax/Vmin ≈ 40 000) and in various transport modes including transport of liquid slugs in tubes, programmable and sequential transport, and bidirectional transport. This VAODR is general to a high diversity of biological and medical fluids, and thus can be used for biomedical detection including ABO blood‐group tests and anticancer drugs screening. These strategies provide a complementary and promising platform for maneuvering omni‐droplets that are fundamental to biomedical applications and other high‐throughput omni‐droplet operation fields.
Directed droplet manipulation is paramount in various applications, including chemical micro-reaction and biomedical analysis. The existing strategies include some kinds of gradients (structure, inherent wettability, and charge density), whereas they suffer from several limitations, such as low velocity, limited volume range, poor durability, and inefficient environmental suitability. Moreover, active bi-directional reversal of omni-droplets remains challenging because one kind of microstructure at a single scale cannot acquire two kinds of net results of mechanical interaction. Herein, we report an active and directional steering of omni-droplets utilizing bi-directional (vertical and horizontal) vibration on slippery cross-scale structures consisting of macro millimeter-scale circular arc arrays and micro/nanometer-scale slant ratchet arrays, which are fabricated by femtosecond laser patterned oblique etching and lubricant infusion. The physical mechanism of active droplet steering lies in the relative competition between the forces under vertical and horizontal vibration, which mainly arise from the circular arc arrays and slant ratchet arrays, respectively. Various steering modes, including climbing and programmable manipulation, can be realized. Our work is applicable to a wide range of potential applications, including circuit on/off and droplet-based chemical micro-reaction, particularly in the field of high-throughput omni-droplets operation.
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