The ability of superhydrophobic surfaces to stay dry, self-clean and avoid biofouling is attractive for applications in biotechnology, medicine and heat transfer 1-10 . It requires that water droplets placed on superhydrophobic surfaces have large apparent contact angles (θ* > 150°) and low roll-off angles (θroll-off < 10°), realized with surfaces having low-surface-energy chemistry as well as micro-or nanoscale surface roughness that minimizes liquid-solid contact 11-17 . But rough surfaces where liquid contacts only a small

Droplets slip and bounce on superhydrophobic surfaces, enabling remarkable functions in biology and technology. These surfaces often contain microscopic irregularities in surface texture and chemical composition, which may affect or even govern macroscopic wetting phenomena. However, effective ways to quantify and map microscopic variations of wettability are still missing, because existing contact angle and force-based methods lack sensitivity and spatial resolution. Here, we introduce wetting maps that visualize local variations in wetting through droplet adhesion forces, which correlate with wettability. We develop scanning droplet adhesion microscopy, a technique to obtain wetting maps with spatial resolution down to 10 µm and three orders of magnitude better force sensitivity than current tensiometers. The microscope allows characterization of challenging non-flat surfaces, like the butterfly wing, previously difficult to characterize by contact angle method due to obscured view. Furthermore, the technique reveals wetting heterogeneity of micropillared model surfaces previously assumed to be uniform.

The ability to create superoleophobic surfaces repellent toward low-surface-tension liquids is important for various applications, and has been recently demonstrated using re-entrant or doubly re-entrant microtopography. Liquid droplets on such surfaces feature composite liquid-solid-air interfaces, whereas composite liquid-lubricant-air interfaces would have potential for additional repellency. Here, the development of a novel slippery superoleophobic surface with low adhesion is demonstrated via combining doubly re-entrant microtopography with slippery lubricant-infused porous surfaces. This is realized by using 3D direct laser writing to fabricate doubly re-entrant micropillars with dedicated nanostructures on top of each pillar. The top nanostructures stabilize the impregnated slippery lubricant, while the re-entrant geometry of the micropillars prevents lubricant from spreading. The slippery layer reduces the adhesion of liquid to the pillars, as proved using scanning droplet adhesion microscopy (SDAM), while the doubly re-entrant micropillars make the surface superoleophobic. This novel interface combining two extremes, superoleophobicity and slippery lubricant-infused surface, is of importance for designing superoleophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces with advanced liquid repellent, anti-icing, or anti-fouling properties.

Superhydrophobicity is a remarkable surface property found in nature and mimicked in many engineering applications, including anti-wetting, anti-fogging, and anti-fouling coatings. As synthetic superhydrophobic coatings approach the extreme non-wetting limit, quantification of their slipperiness becomes increasingly challenging: although contact angle goniometry remains widely used as the gold standard method, it has proven insufficient. Here, micropipette force sensors are used to directly measure the friction force of water droplets moving on super-slippery superhydrophobic surfaces that cannot be quantified with contact angle goniometry. Superhydrophobic etched silicon surfaces with tunable slipperiness are investigated as model samples. Micropipette force sensors render up to three orders of magnitude better force sensitivity than using the indirect contact angle goniometry approach. We directly measure a friction force as low as 7 ± 4 nN for a millimetric water droplet moving on the most slippery surface. Finally, we combine micropipette force sensors with particle image velocimetry and reveal purely rolling water droplets on superhydrophobic surfaces.

Superhydrophobic coatings have extraordinary properties like self‐cleaning and staying dry, and have recently appeared on industrial and consumer markets. The stochastic nature of the coating components and coating processes (e.g., spraying, painting) affects the uniformity of the water repellency across the coated substrate. The wetting properties of those coatings are typically quantified on macroscale using contact angle goniometry (CAG). Here, highly sensitive force‐based methods, scanning droplet adhesion microscopy (SDAM), and micropipette force sensor (MFS), are used, to quantify the microscale heterogeneity in the wetting properties of stochastic superhydrophobic coatings with irregular surface topography that cannot be investigated by CAG. By mapping the wetting adhesion forces with SDAM and friction forces with MFS, it is demonstrated that even the best coatings on the market are prone to heterogeneities that induce stick–slip motion of droplets. Thus, owing to their high spatial and force resolution, the advantages of these techniques over CAG are demonstrated.

No abstract

No abstract

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details.