Tao, R;
McHale, G;
Reboud, J;
Cooper, JM;
Torun, H;
Luo, J;
Luo, J;
... Fu, Y; + view all
(2020)
Hierarchical Nanotexturing Enables Acoustofluidics on Slippery yet Sticky, Flexible Surfaces.
Nano Letters
, 20
(5)
pp. 3263-3270.
10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00005.
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Abstract
The ability to actuate liquids remains a fundamental challenge in smart microsystems, such as those for soft robotics, where devices often need to conform to either natural or three-dimensional solid shapes, in various orientations. Here, we propose a hierarchical nanotexturing of piezoelectric films as active microfluidic actuators, exploiting a unique combination of both topographical and chemical properties on flexible surfaces, while also introducing design concepts of shear hydrophobicity and tensile hydrophilicity. In doing so, we create nanostructured surfaces that are, at the same time, both slippery (low in-plane pinning) and sticky (high normal-to-plane liquid adhesion). By enabling fluid transportation on such arbitrarily shaped surfaces, we demonstrate efficient fluid motions on inclined, vertical, inverted, or even flexible geometries in three dimensions. Such surfaces can also be deformed and then reformed into their original shapes, thereby paving the way for advanced microfluidic applications.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Hierarchical Nanotexturing Enables Acoustofluidics on Slippery yet Sticky, Flexible Surfaces |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00005 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00005 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Hierarchical nanotexture, slippery surface, flexible devices, acoustofluidics, droplet transport |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10114427 |
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