Nature Communications (Jan 2022)

Nanobubbles explain the large slip observed on lubricant-infused surfaces

  • Christopher Vega-Sánchez,
  • Sam Peppou-Chapman,
  • Liwen Zhu,
  • Chiara Neto

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28016-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Why are lubricant-infused surfaces so effective at reducing drag in microfluidic flow? Here, authors reveal that infused nanostructured Teflon wrinkles induce large interfacial slip due to the spontaneous nucleation of surface nanobubbles, a mechanism likely to occur on most rough infused surfaces.