Directional Wetting in Anisotropic Inverse Opals

Citation:

Phillips KR, Vogel N, Burgess IB, Perry CC, Aizenberg J. Directional Wetting in Anisotropic Inverse Opals. Langmuir. 2014;30 (25) :7615-7620.

Abstract:

Porous materials display interesting transport phenomena due to restricted motion of fluids within the nano- to microscale voids. Here, we investigate how liquid wetting in highly ordered inverse opals is affected by anisotropy in pore geometry. We compare samples with different degrees of pore asphericity and find different wetting patterns depending on the pore shape. Highly anisotropic structures are infiltrated more easily than their isotropic counterparts. Further, the wetting of anisotropic inverse opals is directional, with liquids filling from the side more easily. This effect is supported by percolation simulations as well as direct observations of wetting using time-resolved optical microscopy.

Notes:

K.R.P. acknowledges support from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellowship from the Department of Defense. N.V. acknowledges funding from the Leopoldina Fellowship Program. C.C.P. acknowledges the support of an Edward, Frances and Shirley B. Daniels and Wyss Fellowship while at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2012−2013. The authors thank A. V. Shneidman for helpful discussions. This work was funded with support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under Award FA9550-09-0669-DOD35CAP, and it was performed in part at the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) at Harvard University.

Publisher's Version

Last updated on 05/04/2018