Pinning-Depinning Mechanism of the Contact Line during Evaporation of Nanodroplets on Heated Heterogeneous Surfaces: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Droplet evaporation on heterogeneous or patterned surfaces has numerous potential applications, for example, inkjet printing. The effect of surface heterogeneities on the evaporation of a nanometer-sized cylindrical droplet on a solid surface is studied using molecular dynamics simulations of Lennard-Jones particles. Different heterogeneities of the surface were achieved through alternating stripes of equal width but two chemical types, which lead to different contact angles. The evaporation induced by the heated substrate instead of the isothermal evaporation is investigated. It is found that the whole evaporation process is generally dominated by the nonuniform evaporation effect. However, at the initial moment, the volume expansion and local evaporation effects play important roles. From the nanoscale point of view, the slow movement of the contact line during the pinning process is observed, which is different from the macroscopic stationary pinning. Particularly, we found that the speed of the contact line may be not only affected by the intrinsic energy barrier between the two adjacent stripes ((u) over tilde) but also relevant to the evaporation rate. Generally speaking, the larger the intrinsic energy barrier, the slower the movement of the contact line. At the specified temperature, when (u ) over tilde is less than a critical energy barrier ((u) over tilde*), the speed of the contact line would increase with the evaporate rate. When it (u) over tilde > (u) over tilde*, the speed of the contact line is determined only by (u) over tilde and no longer affected by the evaporation rate at different stages (the first stick and the second stick).