1

A Comprehensive report
On
Adaptive fluid-infused porous films with tunable transparency and wettability
By
Abhijit Cahndra Roy
(11202061)
Under the supervision of
Dr. Animangsu Ghatak

Department of chemical Engineering
Indian institute of Technology
Kanpur
09-12-2013








2

Contents
1. Motivation.. 3
2. Graphical abstract .. 4
3. Abstract . 4
4. Introduction 5
5. Materials and Method 8
6. Result and discussion.. 11
7. Conclusion and remark 19
8. Extension of the work. . 20
9. References. 22

















3

Motivation of the work

The motivation of this work is to read, understand, comprehend and suggest/ carry
out possible experiment to extend the work within the time limit of 14 days. The titled of the
assigned paper is Adaptive fluid-infused porous films with tunable transparency and
wettability( Xi Yao et al[32]).The paper has been published in the month of June of this
year(2013) in journal of Nature material.





































4

1.1 Graphical abstract:

Title: Adaptive fluid-infused porous films with tunable transparency and wettability

1.2 Abstract:
The paper describes the adaptable optical and surfac property of a hybrid flexible
material composed of porous Teflon thin sheet attached on a flexible polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS ) film. When the hybrid films pores are infused with lubricating oil, it shows noval
optical as well as surface properties. In free standing state the film behave as a silppery surfaces
for liquids (ranging from very high surface tension liquid to very low surface tension liquid) and
a good transparent material. Application of tensile stress can alter the surface property from
slipery to non-slipery and transparent to opaque and releasing of tensile stress, the surface retain
its initial state. Thus the hybrid film shows a tunable property. The above titled paper has been
studied thoroughly and some of the observations were explained in detail by using some simple
model. Some of the idea has been illustrated as a possible expension of this work.






u
Sliding angle
Application of tensile stress
Non-slippery
Slippery
Hybrid porous-Teflon film with tunable surface property
Droplet can easily slide
Pinning of
droplet
Tunable optical transparency of the hybrid porous-Teflon film
(d)
Transparent
Relaxation of stress
(a)
Hybrid porous film
Opaque Transparent
Hybrid porous film infused with
lubricant
(b)
Opaque
(c)
o Tensile stress
Reversible
Reversible

5

2.1 Introduction:
Adaptability is a phenomenon in which the system responds to the change in its
surroundings. It can be commonly seen in the biological systems, as for example, eye pupil
adjust its diameter according to the intensity of the light, our skin respond to the temperature of
the surroundings and lot more other examples exist in Nature. It takes billions of years for Nature
to establish the perfect engineering designs and formulation of biological systems. Now a day,
scientists are trying to understand the perfect biological systems and their activities and
captivating ideas from them and utilizing theses ideas to develops new material, structures, novel
functional materials as well as architecture[1]. The availability of the biological systems in
Nature attracts huge interest of the researcher and engineer, due to their readymade solution of
many real life problems, as for example, biomimetic fins,[2] actively moving polymers,[3] neural
memory devices,[4] smart micro-/nanocontainers for drug delivery,[5] various biosensors,[68]
dual/multi-responsive materials.[9,10] Although, researcher are trying to mimic the biological
system to make dynamic tunable devices, but currently only few reports are available that deal
with the continuous tenability, [11-13]. On the other hand, some materials with surfaces that
dynamically respond to their surroundings results altering their physicochemical properties.
Numerous examples of such effect can be seen in (1) biomimetics smart surfaces with
controllable wettability smart surfaces with controllable wettability [14] (2) tunable adhesion
property of the surface [15], (3) tailoring surface for direction specific adhesion [16], (4)
directional surface motion [17] (5) The self-cleaning effect of lotus leaves,[18] (6) the
anisotropic de-wetting behavior of rice leaves,[19] (7) the superhydrophobic forces exerted by a
water striders leg,[20] (8) structural colour [21], (9) bacterial and cell patterning[22] and (10)
liquid transport [23,24] etc. Hence, there are various systems in Nature which have been
intensively understood and implementations of these ideas were conducted for solving many
engineering problems. In this context, sometimes more than single physical property of the
material is desired to be adaptable for designing smart materials. In such case, hybrid materials
are usually preferred rather than single strategic materials with unit adaptability [25].
Moreover, to deal with physical properties such as the optical precision and the handling of low
surface tension liquid extra care should be taken on surface defects and heterogeneities of solid
materials [26]. Though there are many report of surface roughness based liquid repellant surfaces
but they are not free from shortcomings, as for example it fails to repel liquid with low surface

6

tension and also high viscous liquids etc [27]. In this report the hybrid lubricant filled porous
system has been used as a liquid repellent surface with tunable optical transparency and surface
roughness. In making the hybrid liquid filled porous system some important criterion has to be
satisfied to make a stable and robust system. The criterions are (1) the lubricating liquid must
impregnates, wet and stably adhere within the substrate, (2) the solid must be preferentially
wetted by the lubricating liquid rather than by the liquid one wants to repel, and (3) the
lubricating and impinging test liquids must be immiscible [28]. In this work the porous substrate
and lubricating liquid has been chosen in such a way that it satisfies the above criterions. The
hybrid porous was made mechanically tunable by replacing the solid substrate with flexible film
and the porous film as a flexible porous film. The mechanical tuning of the system results
interplay among elastic deformation, fluid flow, and liquid solid interactions, as a consequence,
an adaptable, topographies and multifunctional surface properties can be achieved.

The mechanical adaptability arises in the hybrid system, can be understand with a straight
forward concept that pore size of the porous material changes with any deformation of the
substrate and that cause liquid to respond. When lubricant poured on the porous surface a smooth
layer of the liquid lubricant forms on the surface and any other test liquid fall on the surface sees
only a smooth layer of lubricant and as result the liquid got repelled easily, but when a tension is
applied on the surface the pour sizes increases and the liquid layer drawn in the growing pores as
a result the surfaces no more remain smooth, rather it changes the topography according to the
applied stresses.

In this report a quantitative forecast of this tunable behavior has been made by relating
induced pressure change due to the substrate deformation and the interfacial tension. In 1941
Biot et al. he published a paper establishing theory of settlement of soils under load, considered
soil as porous material and Rice et al. correlate Biots to establish theory for fluid-saturated
elastic porous-media [29, 30]. The theory provides the simplified relation between tensile stress
applied to mechanically sensitive fluid-saturated elastic porous- substrate and the pressure of the
liquid inside the porous matrix. It shows that application of the tensile stress o to the flexible
porous matrix decreases the pressure of the liquid inside the pores and the relation can be

7

represented as
3
o
= AP . This pressure drop inside the pores lead to curve the liquid interface
inwards and it continue until an equilibrium state with capillary forces at the interface reached.
The relation can be given as
m
r
P
2
= A , where is the interfacial energy between the infused
liquid and the outside media
m
r is the radius of the meniscus curvature (Fig 3C) [31]. The
hybrid film (as the film is elastic in nature) returns to its the initial state as soon as the tension
releases, as a result, the pressure in the pores are also released and the liquid come back to its
initial state (flat surface). It is obvious that the hybrid film is expected to give a dynamic fluidic
interface with surface feature (e.g. smooth and rough surface) tunability. In this article this
surface tunability has been applied to tune the optical as well as the liquid repellent property of
the film. A continuous optical tunability has been reported using this hybrid film. Moreover,
tunability of optical transparency was achieved not only in visible range but it shows in infra red
region. The same hybrid film was used as a tunable slippery surface to repel as well as attract the
liquid including low surface tension materials.

2.2 Materials:
Perfluorinated fluid (e.g., Krytox perfluoropolyether) was used as the lubricating in the
Teflon porous medium .fluid used for the experiment was perfluorinated fluid). Krytox is a
fluorinated oil having series of low molecular weight fluorine end cape i.e. homopolymer (
homopolymers are the polymer which are made up of only one types of monomers, on the other
hand, the polymer which are made up of more than one monomer is called co-polymer) of hexa
fluropropylene epoxide with the following chemical structure

3
3 2 2
) (
CF
CF CF CF CF F

The polymer chain is completely saturated contain only the element carbon. The density and
kinematic viscosity of Krytox 103 at C
0
25 are
3
1920 m kg and s cm
2
82 . 0 respectively, and
the optical refractive index is in the range of 301 . 1 29 . 1 (water refractive index 1.33).


8


Rhodamine B(orange dye) (fluorescence dye with absorption wavelength 540 nm and emission
wavelength 625 nm) has been used as a dye to color the water.

Figure1: Chemical structure of Rhodamine B


The other chemicals namely n-hexane, octane, decane, dodecane, hexadecane, ethanol and
silicone oil (AR20), were used in the experiments.

2.3 Material fabrication:

The schematic flow chart for the preparation of hybrid membrane is given in fig 2, the step
(a) depicts the preparation of Poly(dymethyl siloxane)( PDMS) elastic film of thickness ~1.5mm
, (b) a thin layer of pre polymer of PDMS with curing precursor (10:1 base and curing agent)
was coated on the substrate (a) and annealed in an oven at 70
0
C for 20 min to obtain a sticky
oligomer, (c) a porous Teflon membrane (average pore size of 200 nm, thickness of 45 m,), was
attached on the sticky oligomer (activated by O
2
plasma treatment for 10 s) as prepared in (b)
and the porous Teflon membrane was placed on top of it with a loading pressure of 1,000 Pa..
The integrated multilayer was then placed in the oven at 70
0
C for 2 h to ensure complete curing.
Finally the sticky PDMS oligomer firmly attached the nanofiber networks to the elastic substrate


2.4 Preparation of liquid-infused surface:
The Krytox oil (Surface tension ~17.4mNm
-1
) was added drop wise and was spread
homogeneously over the as-prepared hybrid porous and flexible membrane to form a layer of oil.
The thickness of the over coated layer can be controlled by the fluid volume given a known
surface area of the sample.

9


2.5 Fabrication of the hybrid film:



Figure 2: The preparation of the hybrid liquid-infused dynamic materials (a) depicts the
preparation of Poly(dimethyl siloxane)( PDMS) elastic film of thickness ~1.5mm , (b) a
thin layer of pre polymer of PDMS with curing precursor (10:1 base and curing agent) was
coated on the substrate (a) and annealed in an oven at 70
0
C for 20 min to obtain a sticky
m,), was attached on the sticky oligomer (activated by O
2
plasma treatment for 10 s) as
prepared in (b) and the porous Teflon membrane was placed on top of it with a loading
pressure of 1,000 Pa. The integrated multilayer was then placed in the oven at 70
0
C for 2 h
to ensure complete curing. Finally the sticky PDMS oligomer firmly attached the nanofiber
networks to the elastic substrate

Oligomer of PDMS for
adhesive
PDMS film of thickness
1.5 m
Porous Teflon film
~70C for 20 min
~70C for 2 hr
(a)
(b)
(c)

10


Figure 3: Diagrammatic illustration of the macroscopic and microscopic property of the
tunable hybrid film. (A) depicts the microscopic side representation of the film (a1)
represent the side wise microscopic view of the film in relaxed state i.e. no external stimuli
was applied, and the lubricant liquid exist over the surface with a height of h, (a2) depict
the same film when a uniform tensile stress is applied on the system, the lubricant level
above the porous medium no more exist, (a3) the film come to its initial state with upper
lubricant layer of height h, (B) shows the diagrammatic illustration of the microscopic
changes occur on the porous medium over the dynamic as well as static state (b1)The
porous medium is represented as composed of unit pores of radius
p
r are filled with
lubricant and a thin layer of excess liquid form a liquid layer with flat and smooth interface
of thickness h. (b2) depicts the situation of the film under small tension, the film surface
start to transit from smooth surface to undulated state. (b3) depicts the film under higher
tension, and the pore expends results a rough surface with a meniscus of radius
m
r .



Side representation of
the hybrid film
o
Application of stress
Relaxation of stress
Freestanding hybrid film
Microscopic representation
of the hybrid film
Small tension
High tension
Smooth surface
of lubricating liquid
Rough surface
Pores
Attain its initial
State with smooth
surface
(A) (B)
(a1)
(a2)
(a3)
(b1)
(b2)
(b3)
(b4)
Lubricant liquid above
the porous surface
Lubricant liquid is sucked by
the pores
Regain the smooth surface
having lubricant

11

3.1 Result and discussion:
3.1.1 Tunable optical transparency of the hybrid film


Figure 4: Diagrammatic illustration of the central idea of the optical of the hybrid film. (a)
Hybrid porous Teflon film (hybrid film) with no lubricant infused and it is opaque (b) the
hybrid film infused with lubricant oil (Krytox) and it turns into transparent film (c)
tangential stress has been applied results increase in roughness of the surface of the hybrid
film and become opaque,(d) stress is released and the film retain its initial state and turns
into transparent,(e) sample of a hybrid film with no lubricant oil,(f) the hybrid film infused
with lubricant oil.

The figure 4 depicts a macroscopic diagrammatic illustration of the tunability of the optical
transparency of the hybrid film. The above illustration clearly illustrate that the hybrid film
without infusion of the lubricant oil is opaque but in presence of liquid in the pores the film
become transparent. In addition, application of the tensile stress reduces the optical transparency
of the film (liquid infused) i.e. the film gradually turns into opaque with the addition of tensile
stress, on the other hand, the film gradually regain its transparency, when the tensile stress is
released .
Tunable optical transparency of the hybrid porous-Teflon film
(d)
Transparent
Relaxation of stress
(a)
Hybrid film
Opaque
Transparent
Hybrid porous film infused with
lubricant
(b)
Opaque
(c)
o Tensile stress
Reversible
Reversible
(e)
(f)

12


Figure 5: (a) In-line optical transmission measurements of the hybrid film in the range
400nm to 900 nm under varying mechanical stretch (lubricant amount per membrane area
was 2.5
2
/ cm l ) . The red lines indicate the stretching process and the blue lines indicate
the relaxing process, respectively. (b) Images taken by infrared camera of a hot plate
without shield and shield by the hybrid film without stressing and with different stretch
ration. (b1) Images of unscreened hot plate (b2) Image of the hot plate screened by the
hybrid film with 0 stress (b3) Image of the hot plate screened by the hybrid film with 6.9%
strain. (b4) Image of the hot plate screened by the hybrid film with 9.9% strain. The colour
gradient from black to purple indicates the infrared signal emission from low to high.(c)
Scheme illustrating the change in optical transmission under stretch. Air pockets induced
by stretching lead to increased light scattering

The microscopic explanation of this optical tunability remains in the film's surface
properties that change with the applications of the tensile stress. As the hybrid film constructed
from nanofiber (with pore size ~ 200nm) networks with interconnected pores of distributed sizes.
As it has been illustrated in figure 3, when tensile stress is applied to the film, the liquid front
will pierce through pores with radius r
m
, until it satisfies the relation
m
r
P
2
= A
and leave the
(a)
(b)
(c) (c)
(c1) (c2)
(b1)
(b2)
(b3)
(b4)

13

surface rough enough to scatter more light from air/liquid, as a result, at a critical value of stress,
the scattering reach to a point (as more pores opens up with increasing stress)that the hybrid film
no more remain transparent. Therefore, the hybrid film gives tunable optical transparency in the
visible range. In addition to that infra red (IR) transparency of the hybrid film was investigated
by using thermal camera image analysis. For this experiment, infra red of wavelength had been
chosen for the experiment. Figure 5 (b) shows the images taken by IR shows that the hybrid film
with 9.9% strain successfully scattered background the signal from a hot plate at (
50
0
).
3.2 Dynamical manipulation of oil and water droplet using hybrid film surface:


Figure 6: Schematic representation of tunable droplet mobility due to manipulation of
liquid infused hybrid films surface. (a) Illustrate the droplet of liquid such as water
and silicone oil can easily slide on the hybrid films surface (when no external tensile
stress was applied) with a sliding angle u . On the other hand (b) represent the same
drop was pinned as a positive tensile stress was applied.
The figure 6 gives a preliminary idea about the hybrid surfaces slippery and non
slippery property with absence and presence of external tensile stress on the film.
u
Sliding angle
Application of tensile stress
Non-slippery
Slippery
Material with tunable surface property
Droplet can easily slide
Pinning of
droplet
(a)
(b)

14



Figure 7: Comparison of the sliding angle due to droplet of silicone oil as a function of
strain on the hybrid film with different amounts of infused lubricant. (b) The data of the
graphs G1and G2 is repotted to compare the slope (the data range are from point p1 to p2
and p4 to p5 from G! andG2 respectively.

The figure 7 shows the dependency of the sliding angle to slide a drop of silicone oil of volume
l 9
with respect to strain of the film with different amount infusing lubricating. For 0 train
condition the sliding angle follow linear relation with the volume of lubricating oil and it is
shown in figure 7 (c). The authors did not explain the cause of this linear relation between them.
The above phenomenon can be explain with concept that when the liquid surface is away from
the solid/liquid interfaces the surface is loosely bond to the solid surface as a result more
mobility of the lubricant molecule can take place in the lubricant /test liquid (krytox oil/silicone
oil) interface and hence less sliding angle is required to slide the droplet. the sliding of drop of
a
b
c
h oil
H Porous media
PDMS film
a
b
c
h=0
Microscopic
representation
of the hybrid
film
h decreases
(a)
(%) Strain
) (
0
Z S
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 2 4 6
(b)
y = -23.75x + 76
0
5
10
15
20
2.4 2.6 2.8 3 3.2
) (
2
cm
l
V

) (
0
Z S
(c)
(p1)
(p2)
(G1)
(G1)
(G1)
(p3)
(p4)
(p5)
(p4)
(p5)
(p1)
(p2)

15

silicone oil with a sliding angle
u
and height of the lubricant layer from the porous surface of
h

has been graphically represented in the figure 8. It is obvious that the height
h
is proportional
to the volume of the lubricant oil; hence in other word we can say, the sliding angle inversely
varies with the height of the lubricating oil from the porous surface. In this context, I would like
to say that authors should have found the values of heights (
h
) of the lubricating oil above the
porous surface (for const amount of volume of liquid) to understand the proper role of
h
in the
sliding angle experiment.

Figure 8: Schematic illustration of the sliding of a silicon oil droplet on the hybrid surface
with lubricating oil height and sliding angle h and u respectively.

Moreover, the authors did not explain the dissimilarity in the variation of the sliding angles with
respect to the lubricant volume with constant strain as it clearly depicted in the figure 7 (a).
Therefore, I have given a possible explanation of this anomaly. Let us take the plot G1, in which
the points in between p1 to p2 shows a linear relationship with sliding angle (
u
) and the
percentage of strain. This clearly as a result of the process that the more number of pores opens
up as percentage of the stain increases. But as the strain increases above the point p2 the sliding
angle decreases little rather further increases, this can be predicted by considering the fact that
increasing the percentage of the strain the thin layer of lubricant (as sown in the figure 9 (c),
layer thickness
o
) form on wall of the pores and it vanishes at high strain[ref. 17], as result of it
u
Sliding angle
Lubricant
Porous hybrid film
Silicone oil
Molecule tightly bound
to the porous surface
Molecule loosely bound
to the porous surface

16

the silicone oil will feel the porous surface rather than the lubricant oil surface result in the
lowering of sliding angle

Figure 9: Represent of the formation pores having a thin layer of lubricant oil covered the
surfaces of the pores with the thickness
o
.

For graph G2, it is ovbious that from point p3 to p4 the variation of slidingle occur when h is
non zero, when the strain cross the point p4 the value of h gradualy become negative ans as a
result, it follow a trend similar to the trand followd by G1 in between the point p1 and p2
(Figure 7 (b) shows similar linearity between the two graph with almost equal sope. )
























Smooth surface
of lubricating liquid
Pores
(a) (b)
Small tension
High tension
(c)
o
thickness of a very thin layer of
lubricant oil on the pores surface
It become zero when the tension
is large

17


3.3 The variation of sliding angle of different test liquid with dissimilar interfacial energies
with respect to the percentage of the strain:




Figure10: (a) The variation of sliding angle of different test liquid with dissimilar
interfacial energies with respect to the percentage of the strain has been plotted. (C1, C2,
C3 and C4 ) The plot between the dependency of sliding angle with respect to the
percentage of strain for the droplet of liquids octane, decane, dodecane and hexadecane
respectively. (b,c and d, e) schematic illustration qualalitative difference in droplet shap of
liquids with low interfacial energie and a liquid with heigh interfacial energies. (f) a circle
of R if filled with many small circles of radius r(hexagonal closed pack structure)

Figure 10 (a) shows the sliding angles for different varies differently with the percentage of
strain. This anomalous behavior has not been addressed by the authors. It is obvious that though
the result shows irregular behavior but the sliding angles for the liquids with lower interfacial
Side view of droplet
on the surface
Top view of droplet
on the surface
Liquid of high interfacial energy
droplet on the surface
Liquid of low interfacial energy
droplet on the surface
r
R
r
a
b
d
c
(a)
(b)
(c) (e)
(d)
(f)
(g)
C1
C2
C3
C4
(h)

18

energies always took larger sliding angle. I have explained these characteristics of the system in
two ways
(1) The liquids having low interfacial energies spreads more on surface as a result more area
can be found in the interface than that of the case of liquid with higher interfacial
energies. This extra interface may be a cause larger sliding angles in the case liquid
having lower interfacial energies. But the sliding angle variation with respect to liquid
with different interfacial energies is very less when the hybrid film is under 0 strains.

(2) As the strain increases the sliding angle variation with different liquids become more
prominent and at a particular strain a huge difference in sliding angle is observed. To
explain this effect, I demonstrate a simple model shown in figure 10 (f,g), in which the
interface between the liquid droplet and the lubricating oil is considered as a circle of
radius R and the pores are considered as a circles of radius r. Now when the hybrid
film is stressed, the liquid insert in to the pores and make meniscus of radius
r(assumption, as shown in the fig 10 g) . As a result, the area of the interface no more
remain
2
R t , rather it increase and the increased surface area has been calculated in this
model.


19




The above calculation shows that for pores of radius r =200 nm and interface radius R=3mm, the
surfaces area increases about 18 times. This increase of the surface area as well as the surface
area increases due to the lower value of interfacial energies together gives fuel to increase sliding
angle of the liquid with lower interfacial energies.










Area of the triangle
bd ac* *
2
1
= A
r r 3 * 2 *
2
1
=
2
3r =
Area due to the circular portion
2
3 *
6
2 2
r r
C
t t
= = A
Area outside the circular portion
C V A A = A
2
3
2
2
r
r V
t
= A
2
1612 . 0 r =
For the hexagonal unit the
total unoccupied area
2
9672 . 0 * 6 r V = A =
Therefore, the total unoccupiedarea due to
n number of circle,
n
r
n *
3
9673 . 0
2
=
A
n r n * 3224 . 0
2
=
A
Now the total area covered by the
circle of radius R can be written as
n r r n R
2 2 2
3224 . 0 + = t t
2
9 . 0
|
.
|

\
|
=
r
R
n
This area arises due to the contribution
of total 3 circle of radius r
2
9673 . 0 r =
Referring to figure 10 (f,g)

20

4.1 Conclusion:
In this report authors describe the tunable optical and surfac property of a hybrid flexible
material composed of porous teflon thin sheet attached on a flexible polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS ) film . When the film is infused with lubricating oil, it shows noval optical as well as
surface properties, such as gradual mechanical stress can tune the optical transparency and the
same stimuli can be used to manupulate the start and stop of a liquid droplet that slides through
the surface. In addition to the normal stress the droplets movement can be manupulated by the
application of stress generated on the surfaces of the film due to bending, poking, swelling etc.
Application of the stress on the film reduces the pressure inside the pores and this pressure
difference is saturated by pierceing of the liquid through the pores, leave the surface rough.This
roughness of the surface is the main cause of both the properties. The work also report that
varying the viscosity and the volume of the lubricating oil, can change the liquid droplet
manupulation capability. Though this paper portray the result of the manupulation of the sliding
of liquid droplet, but proper analysis and the description of the results were not enough.
Therefore, I have given some of the possible explanation of these results in this report.
4.2 Remarks:
This paper describe a very beautiful surface phenomenon of a hybrid porous material which
shows a tremandous application in the different aspect of scientific and techonological need. In
spite of giving numerous application, this paper fails to describe the through understanding of the
hybrid film in microscopic level. As for example, in figure 7, the comparison of the sliding
angle due to silicone oil as a function of strain on the hybrid film with different amounts of
infused lubricant has been discussed. In this related explanation they explained only behavior of
the liquid droplet but failed to explain the reason behind it. In addition, in the figure 10, the
proper explanation of the behavious of the sliding of different liquid was not adiquate to
understand the phenomenon. More over some improtant issues that the report fail to describe are
(1)How does the lubricant free surface behave with the test liquids with different strain? (2)What
is the critical strain for a particular film for which h become zero? (3) Only a qualalitive
experiment has been reported in the case of bending, poking, and swelling of the film etc.



21

Extension of the work:
(1) The work can be farther progressed in the direction of electrocappilary prospect. As for
example instead of using insulating porous material if a conducting porous material and
applying electric field the surface property can be tuned.
(2) In addition to the above examples, we can use ionic liquids for electrowetting effect
purpose.
(3) Tunable surface o a PDMS film.


Figure 11: Droplet of water on a PDMS thin film(t~300 micron) having uniform small
surface undulation (b) droplet of water on the same Pdms film except a 35% was applied.

As the PDMS surface is stratched, the amplitude of the undulation increased as a result cotact
angle of the water changes from 79
0
to 116
0 .
Tunable surface property.











0
79 ~ CA
0
116 ~ CA
(b)
(a)

22


4. Paper based humidity sensor:


Figure 12: Intensity of light when passed through a slit covered with L-paper (b) Intensity
of light when passed through a slit covered with wetted L-paper. (c) Intensity of light when
passed through a slit covered with paper(d) Intensity of light when passed through a slit
covered with wetted paper. (L-paper, A simple paper is deeped in Limon Juice and dried,
paper -simple paper)

This L-paper can be used as humadity sensor. As it is sensitive to water moleule, ie it can easily
absorbe water molecule and become more transparent.
Acknowlegment:
I would like to thank all the lab member of the Soft matter Lab.

References
[1] Stuart, M. A. C. et al. Emerging applications of stimuli-responsive polymer materials. Nature
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