Decreasing the Saturated Contact Angle in Electrowetting-on-Dielectrics by Controlling the Charge Trapping at Liquid-Solid Interfaces

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Xiangming Li ; Hongmiao Tian ; Jinyou Shao ; Yucheng Ding ; Xiaoliang Chen ; Li Wang and Bingheng Lu
• 刊名：Advanced Functional Materials
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：May 10, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：26
• 期：18
• 页码：2994-3002
• 全文大小：5661K
• ISSN：1616-3028

文摘

Contact angle saturation in electrowetting-on-dielectrics (EWOD) has restricted the tuning range of the wettability of a solid surface, which has generally limited the performances of EWOD devices such as digital microfluidics, lab-on-chip, electronic displays, and so forth. Here, a method is proposed for decreasing the saturated contact angle by controlling the behavior of charge trapping at the liquid–solid interface. An unexpected phenomenon is uncovered: for a short time the contact angle reaches smaller values before it retreats to its saturation value, which is caused by charge trapping at the liquid–solid interface. Experimental results suggest that the trapped charges can be repeatedly detrapped and retrapped when the polarity of the applied voltage is periodically reversed, which results in contact angles retreating periodically. By applying a well-modulated voltage signal with reversing polarity, the retreat movement of the contact angle can be controlled to obtain a value significantly smaller than the previously possible threshold. As a specific application of this method, an economic two-step process which is developed potentially suitable for mass-producing large-area flexible microlens arrays with controllable curvatures and wide fields of view.