Wetting

Wang et al. report an underwater capillary adhesive that is strengthened by the conjunction of inner water bridge and outer air shell, and switched timely by a small direct current voltage. The design can also be constructed on flexible tapes, which can be applied to non-conductive substrates.

Elastic deformation of soft substrates occurs upon wetting, yet it is challenging to follow its dynamics at a microscale. Khattak et al. show that the force required to pull a droplet along a soft surface decreases monotonically as the film thickness decreases and explain the phenomenon using a scaling analysis.

The effective acquisition of clean water from atmospheric water offers a potential sustainable solution for increasing global water shortages. Here, authors developed a bioinspired asymmetric amphiphilic surface incorporating self-driven triboelectric adsorption to obtain clean water.

Guided drop transport at high temperature is of great importance in various water and thermal management technologies. Here, authors report a steerable drop transport dictated by the drop boiling states on heated concentric microgroove arrays.

Anisotropic functional patterned surfaces have shown significant applications in microfluidics, biomedicine, and optoelectronics. Here, authors demonstrate a fast and mask-free etching method for accurate surface patterning by confined decomposition, enabling the efficient fabrication of complex patterns.

A uniform particle deposition is crucial for sensitive applications, such as sensors and electronics. Here, authors introduce a passive protocol to suppress the coffee-ring effect and form uniform films at micro- and nanoscales combining superhydrophilic substrate with a neutral-wetting low-roughness mold.