Universal evaporation dynamics of a confined sessile droplet
Droplet evaporation under confinement is ubiquitous to multitude of applications such as microfluidics, surface patterning, and ink-jet printing. However, the rich physics governing the universality in the underlying dynamics remains grossly elusive. Here, we bring out hitherto unexplored universal...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Applied physics letters 2017-09, Vol.111 (10) |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | Droplet evaporation under confinement is ubiquitous to multitude of applications such as
microfluidics, surface patterning, and ink-jet printing. However, the rich physics
governing the universality in the underlying dynamics remains grossly elusive. Here, we
bring out hitherto unexplored universal features of the evaporation dynamics of a sessile
droplet entrapped in a 3D confined fluidic environment. We show, through extensive set of
experiments and theoretical formulations, that the evaporation timescale for such a
droplet can be represented by a unique function of the initial conditions. Moreover, using
same theoretical considerations, we are able to trace and universally merge the volume
evolution history of the droplets along with evaporation lifetimes, irrespective of the
extent of confinement. We also showcase the internal flow transitions caused by
spatio-temporal variation of evaporation flux due to confinement. These findings may be of
profound importance in designing functionalized droplet evaporation devices for emerging
engineering and biomedical applications. |
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ISSN: | 0003-6951 1077-3118 |
DOI: | 10.1063/1.4996986 |