Electro-osmotic flow enhancement over superhydrophobic surfaces

Abstract

We demonstrate that electro-osmotic flow can be actuated over superhydrophobic surfaces on which charge is capacitively induced. Our experiments, supported by theoretical analysis, show that electro-osmotic flow over slipping surfaces based on microstructures is enhanced by at least one order of magnitude relative to equivalent flat surfaces and is entirely pH independent. This work opens the possibility that flow control by gate electrodes may be leveraged to create configurable high throughput fluidic devices.