Droplet Impact on Anisotropic Superhydrophobic Surfaces

A droplet impacting on a superhydrophobic surface exhibits complete bouncing. The impacting process usually consists of spreading and retracting stages, during which the droplet contacts the underlying substrate. Recent research has been devoted to reducing the contact time using textured surfaces with different morphologies or flexibilities. Here, we design submillimeter superhydrophobic ridges and show that impacting droplets bounce off the surface immediately after capillary emptying in a petal-like shape at a certain Weber number range. The absence of a horizontal retraction process in two directions leads to similar to 70% reduction in contact time. We demonstrate that the petal bouncing is attributed to the synergistic cooperation of the hierarchical structures and anisotropic property, which endows effective energy storage and release. When touching the bottom of the grooves, obvious flying wings appear along the ridges with a velocity component in the vertical direction, which help the energy releasing process in achieving fast droplet detachment. At higher Weber numbers, the anisotropic surface distorts the mass distribution and promotes uniform fragmentation of the droplet, and therefore the overall contact time is dramatically reduced. Simple analyses are proposed to explain these phenomena, showing a good agreement with the experimental results. The contact time reduction on anisotropic superhydrophobic surfaces is expected to have a great influence on the design and fabrication of anti-icing and self-cleaning surfaces.