A droplet impinging on a sufficiently heated surface may be cushioned by its own vapor and never touch the surface. In previous work, the transition to this so-called Leidenfrost regime was only qualitatively described as an abrupt change between the "contact-boiling" regime, which is characterized by violent boiling behaviors, and the Leidenfrost state. We reveal that the wetted area can be used as a quantity that quantitatively characterizes this transition and it is a continuous function of surface temperature up to the Leidenfrost regime. The wetted area exhibits fingering patterns caused by vapor flow under the liquid. This underlines the crucial role of vapor transport in the Leidenfrost transition and unveils the physical mechanism of the transition to the Leidenfrost regime.

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The Leidenfrost transition leads a boiling system to the boiling crisis, a state in which the liquid loses contact with the heated surface due to excessive vapor generation. Here, using experiments of liquid droplets boiling on a heated surface, we report a phenomenon, termed oscillating boiling, at the Leidenfrost transition. We show that oscillating boiling results from the competition between two effects: separation of liquid from the heated surface due to localized boiling and rewetting. We argue theoretically that the Leidenfrost transition can be predicted based on its link with the oscillating boiling phenomenon and verify the prediction experimentally for various liquids.

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