Robotic Materials

Dynamically actuated liquid‐infused poroelastic film with precise control over droplet dynamics

2018

Article

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Traditional dynamic adaptive materials rely on an atomic/molecular mechanism of phase transition to induce macroscopic switch of properties, but only a small number of these materials and a limited responsive repertoire are available. Here, liquid as the adaptive component is utilized to realize responsive functions. Paired with a porous matrix that can be put in motion by an actuated dielectric elastomer film, the uncontrolled global flow of liquid is broken down to well-defined reconfigurable localized flow within the pores and conforms to the network deformation. A detailed theoretical and experimental study of such a dynamically actuated liquid-infused poroelastic film is discussed. This system demonstrates its ability to generate tunable surface wettability that can precisely control droplet dynamics from complete pinning, to fast sliding, and even more complex motions such as droplet oscillation, jetting, and mixing. This system also allows for repeated and seamless switch among these different droplet manipulations. These are desired properties in many applications such as reflective display, lab-on-a-chip, optical device, dynamic measurements, energy harvesting, and others.

Author(s): Inkyu Oh and Christoph Keplinger and Jiaxi Cui and Jiehao Chen and George M Whitesides and Joanna Aizenberg and Yuhang Hu
Journal: Advanced Functional Materials
Volume: 28
Number (issue): 39
Pages: 1802632
Year: 2018
Month: September
Department(s): Robotic Materials
Bibtex Type: Article (article)
Paper Type: Journal
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201802632
URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adfm.201802632
Additional (custom) Fields:
acknowledgement: This work was supported by the funding from the Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Award #: DE-SC0005247. Dr. Y. Hu would also like to acknowledge the funding from National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1554326, and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-17-1-0295. The authors thank Professor R. H. Ewoldt for the help with the highspeed images in his rheology lab.

BibTex 

@article{Keplinger18-AFM-Dynamically,
  title = {Dynamically actuated liquid‐infused poroelastic film with precise control over droplet dynamics},
  author = {Oh, Inkyu and Keplinger, Christoph and Cui, Jiaxi and Chen, Jiehao and Whitesides, George M and Aizenberg, Joanna and Hu, Yuhang},
  journal = {Advanced Functional Materials},
  volume = {28},
  number = {39},
  pages = {1802632},
  month = sep,
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.1002/adfm.201802632},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adfm.201802632},
  month_numeric = {9}
}