Electrowetting on Arrayed Carbon Nanofibers

Author

Dhindsa, M.S. ; Smith, N.R. ; Heikenfeld, J. ; Rack, P.D. ; Fowlkes, J.D. ; Doktycz, M.J. ; Melechko, A.V. ; Simpson, M.L.

Author_Institution

Novel Devices Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220

Volume

1

fYear

2006

fDate

17-20 June 2006

Firstpage

207

Lastpage

210

Abstract

Electrowetting on arrayed carbon nanofibers has been demonstrated. The testing structure consists of Si/carbon nanofibers/dielectric/fluoropolymer/liquid. Nanofibers were patterned on 5×5 μm pitch which resulted in superhydrophobic behavior for water (θ>150°). Via electrowetting, liquid contact angle was shown to be irreversibly reducible to θ∼100°. Electrowetting using a competitive two-liquid (oil/water) system was shown to be reversible. The nanofibers terminate in a <25 nm radius tip. This small tip size results in effectively zero capacitance for water in the dewetted state. As electrowetting increased with applied voltage, the wetting state was confirmed by measuring the capacitance and stored energy density for the liquid/nanofiber system.

Keywords

carbon nanofibers; contact angle; electrostatic; electrowetting; microfluidics; superhydrophobic; Atomic layer deposition; Capacitance measurement; Dielectrics and electrical insulation; Fabrication; Laboratories; Materials science and technology; Nanoscale devices; Petroleum; Substrates; Testing; carbon nanofibers; contact angle; electrostatic; electrowetting; microfluidics; superhydrophobic;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nanotechnology, 2006. IEEE-NANO 2006. Sixth IEEE Conference on

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0077-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NANO.2006.247610

Filename

1717060