title: Real-time control of uni-directional liquid spreading on a half-cone nanoshell array.
abstract: Half-cone nanoshell arrays, fabricated by a simple and efficient colloidal lithography method, enable uni-directional liquid spreading on their hydrophilic asymmetric nanostructured surface. The preferred direction of the liquid flow is reversed when the surface is made hydrophobic. Accordingly, poly(N-isopropyl-acrylamide) is polymerized onto the surface for in-site controlling the transition of liquid spreading direction via its temperature dependent hydrophobicity. Furthermore, we also explain theoretically, that the spreading direction on hexagonal nanocone arrays is independent of the lattice orientation and only depends on the slanting direction. The insights gained from this work offer new opportunities for smart microfluidics, water harvesting and making use of other wetting conditions on demand.
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ai
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Limin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces D-14424 Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Helmuth
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Möhwald
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, and Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Zhiyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ziwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Quan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lin