Mandakini Kanungo

Effect of roughness geometry on wetting and dewetting of rough PDMS surfaces.

Rough PDMS surfaces comprising 3 μm hemispherical bumps and cavities with pitches ranging from 4.5 to 96 μm have been fabricated by photolithographic and molding techniques. Their wetting and dewetting behavior with water was studied as model for print surfaces used in additive manufacturing and printed electronics. A smooth PDMS surface was studied as control. For a given pitch, both bumpy and cavity surfaces exhibit similar static contact angles, which increase as the roughness ratio increases. Notably, the observed water contact angles are shown to be consistently larger than the calculated Wenzel angles, attributable to the pinning of the water droplets into the metastable wetting states. Optical microscopy reveals that the contact lines on both the bumpy and cavity surfaces are distorted by the microtextures, pinning at the lead edges of the bumps and cavities. Vibration of the sessile droplets on the smooth, bumpy, and cavity PDMS surfaces results in the same contact angle, from 110°-124° to ∼91°. The results suggest that all three surfaces have the same stable wetting states after vibration and that water droplets pin in the smooth area of the rough PDMS surfaces. This conclusion is supported by visual inspection of the contact lines before and after vibration. The importance of pinning location rather than surface energy on the contact angle is discussed. The dewetting of the water droplet was studied by examining the receding motion of the contact line by evaporating the sessile droplets of a very dilute rhodamine dye solution on these surfaces. The results reveal that the contact line is dragged by the bumps as it recedes, whereas dragging is not visible on the smooth and the cavity surfaces. The drag created by the bumps toward the wetting and dewetting process is also visible in the velocity-dependent advancing and receding contact angle experiments.

Fabrication of two-dimensionally ordered macroporous silica materials with controllable dimensions

The formation of 2-D arrays of cavities of varying size and depth on an electrode surface via colloidal templating is described.

Anomalous thermally induced pinning of a liquid drop on a solid substrate.

The effect of substrate temperature on the wetting and spreading behavior of a UV ink monomer has been studied as a surrogate for the ink on four different substrates: DTC (digital top coat)-coated BOPP (biaxial oriented polypropylene), Flexo-coated BOPP, DTC-coated SGE (semigloss elite) paper, and Flexo-coated SGE paper. Results show that the dynamic contact angles of the monomer decrease exponentially over time after contacting the surface, and the rate of spreading is consistently higher at 95 °C than at 22 °C. This observation indicates that spreading is controlled by the viscosity of the monomer as it decreases with temperature. An anomalous temperature effect is observed for the static contact angle on the DTC-coated BOPP substrate. The static contact angle at 95 °C is significantly larger than that at 22 °C (52° versus 30°). This is counterintuitive, as the surface tension of the monomer is shown to decease with increasing temperature. Microscopy (SEM and AFM) studies suggest that there is little interaction between the DTC coating solution and the BOPP substrate during the fast-drying coating process. This results in a smooth coated surface and, more importantly, voids between the BOPP nanofibers underneath the DTC coating. As the DTC-BOPP substrate is heated to 95 °C, fiber expansions occur. Microscopy results show that nanosized protrusions are formed on the DTC surface. We attribute it to fiber expansions in the vertical direction. Fiber expansions in the lateral direction causes little surface morphology change as the expanded materials only fill the voids laterally between the nanofiber network. We suggest that the protrusions on the surface create strong resistance to the wetting process and pin the monomer drop into a metastable wetting state. This interpretation is supported by the sliding angle and sessile drop height experiments.

Wax Spreading in Paper under Controlled Pressure and Temperature

This work describes a novel rapid method to fabricate high-resolution paper-based microfluidic devices using wax-ink-based printing. This study demonstrates that both temperature and pressure are important knobs in controlling the device resolution. High-resolution lines and patterns were obtained by heating the paper asymmetrically from one side up to 110 °C while applying pressure up to 49 kPa. Starting with wax lines with an initial width of 130 μm, we achieve a thorough penetration through a 190 μm-thick paper with lateral spreading on the front as narrow as 90 μm. The role of temperature and pressure are systematically studied and compared with the prediction of the Lucas-Washburn equation. We found that the temperature dependence of spreading can be explained by the viscosity change of the wax, according to the Lucas-Washburn equation. The pressure dependence deviates from Lucas-Washburn behavior because of compression of the paper. An optimal condition for achieving full depth penetration of the wax yet minimizing lateral spreading is suggested after exploring various parameters including temperature, pressure, and paper type. These findings could lead to a rapid roll-to-roll fabrication of high-resolution paper-based diagnostic devices.