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Fluid dynamics

Shaping drops

A surface made from an array of widely spaced tapered posts enables water drops that hit it to bounce off with a pancake-like shape. This finding provides new strategies for reducing the contact time of drops impacting on surfaces.

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Figure 1: Drop impact dynamics usually displays two phases: spreading and retraction.

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Correspondence to Doris Vollmer or Hans-Jürgen Butt.

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Vollmer, D., Butt, HJ. Shaping drops. Nature Phys 10, 475–476 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3007

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