Drop impact upon superhydrophobic surfaces with regular and hierarchical roughness

Recent studies demonstrate that roughness and morphologies of the textures play essential roles on the dynamics of water drop impacting onto superhydrophobic substrates. Particularly, significant reduction of contact time has greatly attracted people's attention. We experimentally investigate drop impact dynamics onto three types of superhydrophobic surfaces, consisting of regular micropillars, two-tier textures with nano/micro-scale roughness, and hierarchical textures with random roughness. It shows that the contact time is controlled by the Weber number and the roughness of the surface. Compared with drop impact on regular micropillared surfaces, the contact time can be finely reduced by increasing the Weber number on surfaces with two-tier textures, but can be remarkably reduced on surfaces with hierarchical textures resulting from the prompt splash and fragmentation of liquid lamellae. Our study may shed lights on textured materials fabrication, allowing a rapid drop detachment to realize broad applications. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.