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Updated: Oct 19, 2025

Measuring the Interaction Force Between a Droplet and a Super-hydrophobic Substrate by the Optical Lever Method
Published on: June 14, 2019
Topological heterogeneity and evaporation dynamics of irregular water droplets
Yeseul Kim1, Marta Gonçalves1, Deok-Ho Kim2,3
1Soft Matter Physics Laboratory, School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, South Korea.
Abstract:
Water droplets sitting between wires are ubiquitous in nature and industry, often showing irregular (non-spherical) droplet shapes. To understand their topological singularity and evaporation mechanism, measuring volume changes of irregular water droplets is essential but highly challenging for small-volume water droplets. Here we experimentally explore topological heterogeneity and evaporation dynamics for irregular water droplets between wires with four-dimensional X-ray microtomography that directly provides images in three spatial dimensions as a function of time, enabling us to get three-dimensional structural and geometric information changes with time. We find that the topological heterogeneity of an irregular droplet is due to the local contact lines and the evaporation dynamics of an irregular droplet is governed by the effective contact radius. This study may offer an opportunity to understand how the topological heterogeneity contributes to the evaporation dynamics of irregular water droplets.
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