Equilibrium droplet shapes on chemically patterned surfaces: theoretical calculation, phase-field simulation, and experiments.

HYPOTHESIS

Droplet wetting on a solid substrate is affected by the surface heterogeneity. Introducing patterned wettability on the solid substrate is expected to engender anisotropic wetting morphologies, thereby manipulating droplet wetting behaviors. However, when the droplet size is comparable with that of the surface heterogeneity, the wetting morphologies cannot be depicted by the quintessential Cassie's theory but should be possible to be predicted from the perspective of thermodynamics via surface energy minimization.

METHODS

Here, we investigate the equilibrium droplet shapes on chemically patterned substrates by using an analytical model, phase-field simulations, and experiments. The former two methods are sharp and diffuse interface treatments, respectively, which both are based on minimizing the free energy of the system. The experimental results are obtained by depositing droplets on chemically patterned glass substrates.

FINDINGS

Various anisotropic wetting shapes are found from the three methods. Excellent agreement is observed between different methods, showing the possibility to quantify the anisotropic wetting droplet morphologies on patterned substrates by present methods. We also address a series of non-rotationally symmetric droplet shapes, which is the first resport about these special wetting morphologies. Furthermore, we reveal the anisotropic wetting shapes in a quasi-equilibrium evaporation process.