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Description:

Droplet manipulation on surfaces is ubiquitous in many industrial fields. Liquid-repellent surfaces are required to facilitate manipulation because sticking restricts droplet motion. Various liquid-repellent surfaces have been used to manipulate microliter droplets. However, classical surfaces suffer from the repellence of pico- to nanoliter droplets. This study demonstrates the nonsticking property of pico- to nanoliter droplets on surfaces when it is coated with low-surface-energy particles with nano–micrometer hierarchy. The dynamic particle coating of ultrasonic-sprayed droplets enables the formation of highly spherical, isolated, particle-coated picoliter droplets. The particle coating changes the solid–liquid interfacial friction to solid–solid interfacial friction and reduces the force required to move the droplet to the subnanonewton range. Consequently, picoliter droplets slide off a tilted substrate without sticking. The coating does not affect the fluid shape reconfigurability of the droplets. This approach facilitates diverse and complex multiway manipulation of picoliter droplets, allowing separation, arrangement, transportation, and shape reconfiguration without sticking. This advances the understanding of droplet behavior at interfaces, and the proposed method may contribute to downsizing fluidic systems.

Rights:

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International
  

Keyword: nanomicrometer hierarchical particles, nonsticking picoliter droplet, liquid marble, superomniphobicity, droplet manipulation

Date published: 2025-11-18

Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Journal:

• ACS Nano (ISSN: 19360851) vol. 19 issue. 45 p. 39398-39406

Funding:

• Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
• Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology JPMJCR24A2
• Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology JPMJPR23N1
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 21H01643
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 23K18567
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 25K01517
• Fusion Oriented REsearch for disruptive Science and Technology JPMJFR2139
• Fusion Oriented REsearch for disruptive Science and Technology JPMJFR223V

Manuscript type: Publisher's version (Version of record)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c14919

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Updated at: 2025-11-19 16:30:03 +0900

Published on MDR: 2025-11-19 16:26:32 +0900