Liquid-Metal Enabled Droplet Circuits

Enhanced Liquid Metal Micro Droplet Generation

We present a novel pneumatic actuation system for generation of liquid metal droplets according to the so-called StarJet method. In contrast to our previous work, the performance of the device has been significantly improved: the maximum droplet generation frequency in continuous mode has been increased to fmax = 11 kHz (formerly fmax = 4 kHz). In addition, the droplet diameter has been reduced...

Reconfigurable liquid metal circuits by Laplace pressure shaping

Persistent droplet motion in liquid-liquid dewetting.

When a nonvolatile liquid film dewets from a partly compatible liquid substrate, the advancing dewetting front leaves behind droplets formed through a Rayleigh instability mechanism at its rim. We have found that these droplets continue to move in the direction of the dewetting front for extended periods (of order one day) with an initial droplet velocity varying linearly with the droplet size,...

Evaporation of a Liquid Droplet

Two idealized models for the preheat s tage of liquid droplets are ana lyzed theoretically . These models conta in the effects of transie nt heat conduction and evaporati on. It is assumed that the droplet surface a rea decreases linearly with time. This assumption necessitates the solution of mov ing boundary problems . These models, however, do not consider gas-phase mass transport . In the f...

Liquid-in-gas Droplet Microfluidics

Here we demonstrate a novel concept of liquid-in-gas droplet microfluidics by using gas flow as the continuous phase for the production of liquid droplets. Within a specially configured co-flow microfluidic tubing device, a flow of liquid phase has been continuously dispersed into another outer stream of gas phase, producing discrete and monodisperse microdroplets. This process is robust and we...