The Influence of Temperature on Anisotropic Wettability Revealed by Friction Force Measurement

Anisotropic surfaces with special wettability under various temperatures are of both fundamental interest and practical importance in many fields. However, little attention has been paid to the surfaces at temperatures between room temperature and the boiling point of water, which is partially due to the lack of a suitable characterization technique. Here, using the MPCP (monitoring of the position of the capillary’s projection) technique, the influence of the temperature on the friction of a water droplet on the graphene-PDMS (GP) micropillar array (GP-MA) is investigated. The friction forces in the orthogonal directions and the anisotropy in the friction decrease when the GP-MA surface is heated up, based on the photothermal effect of graphene. The friction forces also decrease along the pre-stretching direction but increase in the orthogonal direction when the stretching is increased. The change in the contact area, the Marangoni flow inside a droplet, and the mass reduction are responsible for the temperature dependence. The findings strengthen our fundamental understanding of the dynamics of drop friction at high temperatures and could pave the way for the design of new functional surfaces with special wettabilities.