Related papers: Patterning droplets with durotaxis
We report an experimental investigation of the spontaneous motion of liquid droplets on soft gels with a crosslinking gradient. By systematically adjusting the spatial difference in crosslinking density, we observed that millimeter-sized…
During neurodevelopment, neuronal axons navigate through the extracellular environment, guided by various cues to establish connections with distant target cells. Among other factors, axon trajectories are influenced by heterogeneities in…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
Passive droplet transport mechanisms, in which continuous external energy input is not required for motion, have received significant attention in recent years. Experimental studies of such mechanisms often ignore, or use careful treatments…
Droplet impacts are fundamental to fluid-structure interactions, shaping processes from erosion to bioprinting. While previous scaling laws have provided insights into droplet dynamics, force scaling laws remain insufficiently understood,…
We study theoretically the hydrodynamics of a fluid drop containing oriented filaments endowed with active contractile or extensile stresses and placed on a solid surface. The active stresses alter qualitatively the wetting properties of…
Gradient-driven diffusion in crowded, multicomponent mixtures is a topic of high interest because of its role in biological processes such as transport in cell membranes. In partially phase-separated solutions, gradient-driven diffusion…
Controlling the shape and position of moving and pinned droplets on a solid surface is an important feature often found in microfluidic applications. However, automating them, e.g., for high-throughput applications, does rarely involve…
Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…
Understanding the dynamics of drops on polymer-coated surfaces is crucial for optimizing applications such as self-cleaning materials or microfluidic devices. While the static and dynamic properties of deposited drops have been well…
Liquid droplet dynamics are widely used in biological and engineering applications, which contain complex interfacial instabilities and pattern formation such as droplet merging, splitting, and transport. This paper studies a class of mean…
The directed migration of cells toward stiffer substrate regions or durotaxis is relevant to tissue development and tumor progression. Here, we introduce a phenomenological model for single cell durotaxis that incorporates both elastic…
The transport of small quantities of liquid on a solid surface is inhibited by the resistance to motion caused by the contact between the liquid and the solid. To overcome such resistance, motion can be externally driven through gradients…
We study the rolling and sliding motion of droplets on a corrugated substrate by Molecular Dynamics simulations. Droplets are driven by an external body force (gravity) and we investigate the velocity profile and dissipation mechanisms in…
Recently, there has been much interest in using lubricated flat and nano-/micro-structured surfaces to achieve extreme liquid-repellency: any foreign droplet immiscible with the underlying lubricant layer was shown to slide off at a small…
Using Molecular Dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained polymer liquid we investigate the transport of droplets on asymmetrically structured (saw-tooth shaped), vibrating substrates. Due to a continuous supply of power by substrate…
A new mechanism for the passive removal of drop on a horizontal surface is described that does not require pre-fabrication of a surface energy gradient. The method relies upon the preparation of alternate hydrophilic/hydrophobic stripes on…
Drops on a vibrating substrate can experience a variety of motion regimes, including directional motion and climbing. The key ingredient to elicit these regimes is simultaneously activating the in-plane and out-of-plane degrees of freedom…
We study chemically driven running droplets on a partially wetting solid substrate by means of coupled evolution equations for the thickness profile of the droplets and the density profile of an adsorbate layer. Two models are introduced…
Patterning the wettability of solid surfaces is a successful strategy to control the dropwise condensation of vapor onto partially wetting solid surfaces. We followed the condensation of water vapor onto electrowetting-functionalized…