Wettability Pattern for Ultrafast Water Self‑Pumping on Cemented Carbide Surface

A facile method to fabricate wettability pattern(two extreme wettabilities arranged in a pattern)to realize water self-pumping is proposed on cemented carbide while not necessarily depositing other materials on substrate surface.The water self-pumping is achieved by arranging wedge shaped superhydrophilic domain in superhydrophobic substrate using laser machining.Through single factor experiments,it is found that the key to the extreme wettabilities,micro⁃and nano⁃structures,is rendered by laser machining processes and is influenced by laser parameters.Meanwhile,the proper laser parameters that are used to fabricate required micro-and nano⁃structures are obtained.Finally,the water transport experiment is carried out,which shows that the velocity of water bulge could be up to 362 mm/s when the wedge angle is 3°.The mechanism of the water self-pumping is analyzed and it is found that the migration of water bulge is governed by Laplace pressure of the water bulge induced by the wedge micro-groove.

Soft Fibrous Structures in Nature as Liquid Catcher

Past decades have witnessed the explosive growth of interest in the field of bioinspired materials,of which the structures and properties can be well utilized for industrial and bioengineering applications.Among these structures,the natural fibrous structures propose diverse strategies to adapt to their environment,offering inspirations for versatile applications,especially droplet manipulation.With various well-adapted soft structures and materials,these fibrous structures show good control over their interaction with liquids(e.g.,water),providing a database full of effective solutions to these droplet-related scientific and technical problems(e.g.,colloidal synthesis,single-cell gene sequencing,drug delivery and solution synthesis).In this review,the current achievements in water collection by multiple fibrous structures are highlighted;the structures,basic models,bio-inspired structures and their applications are presented;and the current challenges and future prospects for the development of bio-inspired fibrous structures are discussed.

Manipulating Bloch surface waves in 2D: a platform concept-based flat lens

At the end of the 1970s,it was confirmed that dielectric multilayers can sustain Bloch surface waves(BSWs).However,BSWs were not widely studied until more recently.Taking advantage of their high-quality factor,sensing applications have focused on BSWs.Thus far,no work has been performed to manipulate and control the natural surface propagations in terms of defined functions with two-dimensional(2D)components,targeting the realization of a 2D system.In this study,we demonstrate that 2D photonic components can be implemented by coating an in-plane shaped ultrathin(l/15)polymer layer on the dielectric multilayer.The presence of the polymer modifies the local effective refractive index,enabling direct manipulation of the BSW.By locally shaping the geometries of the 2D components,the BSW can be deflected,diffracted,focused and coupled with 2D freedom.Enabling BSW manipulation in 2D,the dielectric multilayer can play a new role as a robust platform for 2D optics,which can pave the way for integration in photonic chips.Multiheterodyne near-field measurements are used to study light propagation through micro-and nano-optical components.We demonstrate that a lens-shaped polymer layer can be considered as a 2D component based on the agreement between near-field measurements and theoretical calculations.Both the focal shift and the resolution of a 2D BSW lens are measured for the first time.The proposed platform enables the design of 2D all-optical integrated systems,which have numerous potential applications,including molecular sensing and photonic circuits.