National Nanotechnology Laboratory, CNR-Istituto di Nanoscienze, Università del Salento, via per Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy.
Langmuir. 2010 Dec 7;26(23):18557-63. doi: 10.1021/la1026398. Epub 2010 Oct 28.
Patterned polymeric coatings enriched with colloidal TiO(2) nanorods and prepared by photopolymerization are found to exhibit a remarkable increase in their water wettability when irradiated with UV laser light. The effect can be completely reversed using successive storage in vacuum and dark ambient environment. By exploiting the enhancement of the nanocomposites hydrophilicity upon UV irradiation, we prepare wettability gradients along the surfaces by irradiating adjacent surface areas with increasing time. The gradients are carefully designed to achieve directional movement of water drops along them, taking into account the hysteresis effect that opposes the movement as well as the change in the shape of the drop during its motion. The accomplishment of surface paths for liquid flow, along which the hydrophilicity gradually increases, opens the way to a vast number of potential applications in microfluidics.
经光聚合制备的富含胶体 TiO(2)纳米棒的图案化聚合物涂层在受到紫外激光照射时，其润湿性显著提高。这种效果可以通过在真空中和黑暗环境中连续储存来完全逆转。通过利用纳米复合材料在紫外光照射下的亲水性增强，我们通过用时间递增的方式辐照相邻的表面区域，在表面上制备出润湿性梯度。梯度被精心设计，以考虑到抵抗运动的滞后效应以及在运动过程中液滴形状的变化，从而实现液滴沿其方向的定向运动。沿着这些表面路径实现液体流动，其亲水性逐渐增加，为微流控领域的大量潜在应用开辟了道路。
