Internal rupture and rapid bouncing of impacting drops induced by submillimeter-scale textures.

We demonstrate an internal breakup mechanism for high Weber number drop impact on superhydrophobic surfaces uniformly patterned with submillimeter-scale textures, in which the liquid film ruptures from both interior and rim. The employment of submillimeter-scale posts could help decrease the critical Weber number of internal rupture, due to the small solid fraction and the large dimension ratio between primary structures and droplets. The internal rupture is found to promote more rapid drop bouncing than conventional rebound and rim breakup on superhydrophobic surfaces with small roughness, with a 10%-50% reduction of contact time. The internal rupture results from the film instability inside and the jet instability outside.