Related papers: Stiffness-guided motion of a droplet on a solid su…

Numerous cell-types have shown a remarkable ability to detect and move along gradients in stiffness of an underlying substrate -- a process known as durotaxis. The mechanisms underlying durotaxis are still unresolved, but generally believed…

The self-sustained motion of fluids on gradient substrates is a spectacular phenomenon, which can be employed and controlled in applications by carefully engineering the substrate properties. Here, we report on a design of a gel substrate…

Applications such as digital microfluidics and bio-diagnostics rely on droplet locomotion. A prominent example of such motion is durotaxis, a phenomenon that requires a stiffness gradient along a surface for the transport of liquids, cells,…

Using extensive molecular dynamics simulation of a coarse-grained model, we demonstrate the possibility of sustained unidirectional motion (durotaxis) of droplets without external energy supply when placed on a polymer brush substrate with…

Durotaxis motion is a spectacular phenomenon manifesting itself by the autonomous motion of a nano-object between parts of a substrate with different stiffness. This motion usually takes place along a stiffness gradient from softer to…

Cells move differently on substrates with different elasticities. In particular, the persistence time of their motion is higher on stiffer substrates. We show that this behavior will result in a net transport of cells directed up a…

Fluid droplets can be induced to move over rigid or flexible surfaces under external or body forces. We describe the effect of variations in material properties of a flexible substrate as a mechanism for motion. In this paper, we consider a…

Nano-patterned substrates offer possibilities for controlling the motion of fluids without external energy supply in novel technologies in microfluidics, coatings, etc. Here, we report on the rugotaxial motion of droplets on wrinkled…

Most passive droplet transport strategies rely on spatial variations of material properties to drive droplet motion, leading to gradient-based mechanisms with intrinsic length scales that limit the droplet velocity or the transport…

Nanodroplets on chemically structured substrates move under the action of disjoining pressure induced forces. A detailed analysis of them shows that even in the absence of long-ranged lateral variations of the effective interface potential,…

Making liquid droplets move spontaneously on solid surfaces is a key challenge in lab-on-chip and heat exchanger technologies. The best-known mechanism, a wettability gradient, does not generally move droplets rapidly enough and cannot…

Here we report a surface curvature-induced directional movement phenomenon, based on molecular dynamics simulations, that a nanoscale water droplet at the outer surface of a graphene cone always spontaneously moves toward the larger end of…

We demonstrate spontaneous bidirectional motion of droplets on liquid infused surfaces in the presence of a topographical gradient, in which the droplets can move either toward the denser or the sparser solid fraction area. Our analytical…

How to make small liquid droplets move spontaneously and directionally on solid surfaces is a challenge in lab-on-chip technologies, DNA analysis, and heat exchangers. The best-known mechanism, a wettability gradient, does not move droplets…

Earlier works found out spontaneous directional motion of liquid droplets on hydrophilic conical surfaces, however, not hydrophobic case. Here we show that droplets on any surface may take place spontaneous directional motion without…

Droplet motion over a surface with wettability gradient has been simulated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to highlight the underlying physics. GROMACS and Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) were used for simulation and intermittent…

Pinning of liquid droplets on solid substrates is ubiquitous and plays an essential role in many applications, especially in various areas, such as microfluidics and biology. Although pinning can often reduce the efficiency of various…

Droplets move on substrates with a spatio-temporal wettability pattern as generated, for example, on light-switchable surfaces. To study such cases, we implement the boundary-element method to solve the governing Stokes equations for the…

Here, we study the coalescence of two droplets that are moving in the same direction on a soft surface; the motion of the droplets is caused by a gradient in the surface stiffness. As reference, stationary coalescence of the same droplets…

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…