Wetting phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and technology. A solid substrate exposed to the environment is almost invariably covered by a layer of fluid material. In this review, the surface forces that lead to wetting are considered, and the equilibrium surface coverage of a substrate in contact with a drop of liquid. Depending on the nature of the surface forces involved, different scenarios for wetting phase transitions are possible; recent progress allows us to relate the critical exponents directly to the nature of the surface forces which lead to the different wetting scenarios. Thermal fluctuation effects, which can be greatly enhanced for wetting of geometrically or chemically structured substrates, and are much stronger in colloidal suspensions, modify the adsorption singularities. Macroscopic descriptions and microscopic theories have been developed to understand and predict wetting behavior relevant to microfluidics and nanofluidics applications. Then the dynamics of wetting is examined. A drop, placed on a substrate which it wets, spreads out to form a film. Conversely, a nonwetted substrate previously covered by a film dewets upon an appropriate change of system parameters. The hydrodynamics of both wetting and dewetting is influenced by the presence of the three-phase contact line separating "wet" regions from those that are either dry or covered by a microscopic film only. Recent theoretical, experimental, and numerical progress in the description of moving contact line dynamics are reviewed, and its relation to the thermodynamics of wetting is explored. In addition, recent progress on rough surfaces is surveyed. The anchoring of contact lines and contact angle hysteresis are explored resulting from surface inhomogeneities. Further, new ways to mold wetting characteristics according to technological constraints are discussed, for example, the use of patterned surfaces, surfactants, or complex fluids.

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Wetting and Spreading

Electrowetting has become one of the most widely used tools for manipulating tiny amounts of liquids on surfaces. Applications range from 'lab-on-a-chip' devices to adjustable lenses and new kinds of electronic displays. In the present article, we review the recent progress in this rapidly growing field including both fundamental and applied aspects. We compare the various approaches used to derive the basic electrowetting equation, which has been shown to be very reliable as long as the applied voltage is not too high. We discuss in detail the origin of the electrostatic forces that induce both contact angle reduction and the motion of entire droplets. We examine the limitations of the electrowetting equation and present a variety of recent extensions to the theory that account for distortions of the liquid surface due to local electric fields, for the finite penetration depth of electric fields into the liquid, as well as for finite conductivity effects in the presence of AC voltage. The most prominent failure of the electrowetting equation, namely the saturation of the contact angle at high voltage, is discussed in a separate section. Recent work in this direction indicates that a variety of distinct physical effects?rather than a unique one?are responsible for the saturation phenomenon, depending on experimental details. In the presence of suitable electrode patterns or topographic structures on the substrate surface, variations of the contact angle can give rise not only to continuous changes of the droplet shape, but also to discontinuous morphological transitions between distinct liquid morphologies. The dynamics of electrowetting are discussed briefly. Finally, we give an overview of recent work aimed at commercial applications, in particular in the fields of adjustable lenses, display technology, fibre optics, and biotechnology-related microfluidic devices.

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Electrowetting: from basics to applications

Intermolecular And Surface Forces

Fundamental and applied research in chemistry and biology benefits from opportunities provided by droplet-based microfluidic systems. These systems enable the miniaturization of reactions by compartmentalizing reactions in droplets of femoliter to microliter volumes. Compartmentalization in droplets provides rapid mixing of reagents, control of the timing of reactions on timescales from milliseconds to months, control of interfacial properties, and the ability to synthesize and transport solid reagents and products. Droplet-based microfluidics can help to enhance and accelerate chemical and biochemical screening, protein crystallization, enzymatic kinetics, and assays. Moreover, the control provided by droplets in microfluidic devices can lead to new scientific methods and insights.

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Reactions in Droplets in Microfluidic Channels

We describe devices in which optics and fluidics are used synergistically to synthesize novel functionalities. Fluidic replacement or modification leads to reconfigurable optical systems, whereas the implementation of optics through the microfluidic toolkit gives highly compact and integrated devices. We categorize optofluidics according to three broad categories of interactions: fluid–solid interfaces, purely fluidic interfaces and colloidal suspensions. We describe examples of optofluidic devices in each category.

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Developing optofluidic technology through the fusion of microfluidics and optics

We used electrowetting to trigger self-excited oscillations of millimeter-sized sessile droplets of water-glycerol mixtures in a viscosity range from 1 to 65 mPa s. During the oscillations the contact angle of the droplets varied periodically between [approximate]130° and 80° with a frequency between 10 and 125 s–1, depending on the viscosity and the drop size. By initially staining drops partially with fluorescent dye, we found that the liquid within the drop is completely mixed within 100–2000 oscillation cycles for low and high viscosities, respectively. Compared to pure diffusion, droplet oscillations accelerated mixing by approximately two orders of magnitude for millimeter-sized droplets

Microfluidic mixing through electrowetting-induced droplet oscillations

Long-range electrostatic fields deform the surface profile of a conductive liquid in the vicinity of the contact line. We have investigated the equilibrium profiles by balancing electrostatic and capillary forces locally at the liquid vapor interface. Numerical results show that the contact angle at the contact line approaches Young's angle. Simultaneously, the local curvature displays a weak algebraic divergence. Furthermore, we present an asymptotic analytical model, which confirms these results and elucidates the scaling behavior of the profile close to the contact line.

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Interface Profiles near Three-Phase Contact Lines in Electric Fields

Electrowetting is becoming a more and more frequently used tool to manipulate liquids in various microfluidic applications. On the scale of the entire drop, the effect of electrowetting is to reduce the apparent contact angle of partially wetting conductive liquids upon application of an external voltage. Microscopically, however, strong electric fields in the vicinity of the three phase contact line give rise to local deformations of the drop surface. We determined the equilibrium surface profile using a combined numerical, analytical, and experimental approach. We find that the local contact angle in electrowetting is equal to Young's angle independent of the applied voltage. Only on the scale of the thickness of the insulator and beyond does the surface slope assume a value consistent with the voltage-dependent apparent contact angle. This behaviour is verified experimentally by determining equilibrium surface profiles for insulators of various thicknesses between 10 and 250 µm. Numerically and analytically, we find that the local surface curvature diverges algebraically upon approaching the contact line with an exponent −1<μ<0. We discuss the relevance of the local surface properties for dynamic aspects of the contact line motion.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-8984/19/37/375112/pdf

Equilibrium drop surface profiles in electric fields

Volume phase transition of “smart” microgels in bulk solution and adsorbed at an interface: A combined AFM, dynamic light, and small angle neutron scattering study

We studied the layer-by-layer collapse of molecularly thin films of a model lubricant confined between two atomically smooth substrates. The dynamics of the consecutive expulsion of four molecular layers were found to slow down with decreasing film thickness but showed no evidence for confinement-induced solidification. Using a hydrodynamic model, we show that the sliding friction of liquid layers on top of the solid substrates is approximately 18 times higher than the mutual friction between adjacent liquid layers. The latter was independent of film thickness and in close agreement with the bulk viscosity.

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Friedrich Gunther Mugele

Papers

Microfluidic mixing through electrowetting-induced droplet oscillations

Interface Profiles near Three-Phase Contact Lines in Electric Fields

Equilibrium drop surface profiles in electric fields

Volume phase transition of “smart” microgels in bulk solution and adsorbed at an interface: A combined AFM, dynamic light, and small angle neutron scattering study

Nanofluidics: Viscous Dissipation in Layered Liquid Films