College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'An 710021, P. R. China.
Soft Matter. 2018 Sep 19;14(36):7500-7506. doi: 10.1039/c8sm01288a.
Nanoliter sized droplet deposition has gained increasing importance in many biomedical, chemical, and microfluidic applications and in materials synthesis. In this paper, we report a simple method for rapid and high-throughput deposition of nanoliter-sized droplets by dragging a larger droplet on star-shaped hydrophilic-superhydrophobic patterned surfaces. Dragging a droplet on the patterned surface causes water to adhere to hydrophilic patterns. As the larger mother droplet detaches from a star-shaped pattern, a small daughter droplet is deposited on the pattern. Star-shaped hydrophilic patterns with a distinct number of spikes are fabricated and investigated. Systematic tests are carried out to study the influence of different process parameters including the volume of a mother droplet, the dragging velocity, the number of spikes and the dragging directions to the deposition process. The results indicate that creating microarrays by dragging large droplets on patterned hydrophilic-superhydrophobic surfaces yield a reliable, cost-efficient, high-accuracy and easily scalable deposition. The volume of the daughter droplet grows with the velocity of the mother droplet and the number of spikes in a pattern, and decreases with the volume of the mother droplet.
纳升尺寸液滴沉积在许多生物医学、化学和微流控应用以及材料合成中变得越来越重要。在本文中，我们报告了一种通过在星形亲水-超疏水图案表面上拖动较大液滴来快速、高通量沉积纳升尺寸液滴的简单方法。在图案表面拖动液滴会导致水附着在亲水图案上。随着较大的母液滴从星形图案上脱离，一个小的子液滴沉积在图案上。制造并研究了具有明显数量的刺的星形亲水图案。系统地测试了不同的工艺参数对沉积过程的影响，包括母液滴的体积、拖动速度、刺的数量和拖动方向。结果表明，通过在图案化亲水-超疏水表面上拖动大液滴来制造微阵列可以实现可靠、经济高效、高精度和易于扩展的沉积。子液滴的体积随母液滴的速度和图案中刺的数量而增加，随母液滴的体积而减小。
