Contact line dynamics of a water drop spreading over a textured surface in the electrowetting-on-dielectric configuration.

Modeling the electrowetting process of a liquid droplet placed on a hydrophobic surface in an ambient environment has several challenges over and above those of basic spreading [F. Mugele, Soft Matter 5, 3377 (2009)10.1039/b904493k]. At an external voltage below the value that causes contact angle saturation, transient spreading is augmented by contact angle reduction defined by the Young-Lippmann equation. In addition, the macroscopic equilibrium contact angle and, therefore, the spreading rate could be altered by the surface hysteresis. Beyond the saturation point, spreading reveals additional features of higher complexity [Q. Vo and T. Tran, J. Fluid Mech. 925, A19 (2021)10.1017/jfm.2021.677]. These details have been examined from experiments as well as numerical simulation in the present work. Below the saturation point, the contact angle model of Dwivedi et al. [Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 034002 (2022)10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.034002] with the correction related to the electric field is seen to be applicable. Beyond saturation, the experimentally determined instantaneous contact angle distribution shows two distinct functionalities with respect to the contact line velocity. The first prevails from the onset of spreading until the spreading factor attains a peak value. The second trend is initiated with the retraction of the contact line. Except for differences in parametric values, the form of the contact angle model remains unchanged. Simulations in the postsaturation regime are shown to match experimental data in terms of the transient spreading factor, drop shapes, and the instantaneous contact angle. The role of the ground wire is found to be important and the three-phase contact line formed on it has been included in simulations. Spreading dynamics of the droplet have also been studied when the ground wire is kept at a distance of 40 μm from the apex of the drop. Simulations as well as experiments, show the propagation of a capillary wave between the ground wire and the three-phase contact line. For spreading over an uncoated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface, the contact line is trapped at local pinning sites, leading to additional distortions in the instantaneous shapes acquired by the interface.