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Droplet impacts on solid surfaces produce a wide variety of phenomena such as spreading, splashing, jetting, receding, and rebounding. In microholed surfaces, downward jets through the hole can be caused by the high impact inertia during the spreading phase of the droplet over the substrate as well as the cavity collapse during recoil phase of the droplet. We investigate the dynamics of the jet formed through the single hole during the impacting phase of the droplet on a micro-holed hydrophilic substrate. The sub-millimeter circular holes are created on the 0.2 mm-thickness hydrophilic plastic films using a 0.5 mm punch. Great care has been taken to ensure that the millimeter-sized droplets of water dispensed by a syringe pump through a micropipette tip can impact directly over the micro-holes. A high-speed video photography camera is employed to capture the full event of impacting and jetting. A MATLAB code has been developed to process the captured videos for data analysis. We study the effect of impact velocity on the jet formation including jet velocity, ejected droplet volume, and breakup process. We find that the Weber number significantly affects outcomes of the drop impact and jetting mechanism. We also examine the dynamic contact angle of the contact line during the spreading and the receding phase. 

The jetting phenomenon associated with droplet impact upon a hydrophilic micropillared substrate was analyzed in detail using a high-speed camera. Viscosities of the fluids were varied using differing concentrations of glycerol in deionized water. This paper aims to connect similarities between this form of capillary jetting and another well-known jetting phenomenon from the bubble bursting. Both experience a cavity collapse when opposing fluid fronts collide which causes a singularity at the liquid surface, thus leading to the occurrence of jetting. Following processes used to define scaling laws for bubble bursting, a similar approach was taken to derive scaling laws for the dimensionless jet height, jet radius, base height, and radius of the jet base with respect to dimensionless time for the jetting phenomenon associated with the droplet impact. The development of a top droplet before the breakup of the jet also allows the examination of a scaling law for the necking diameter. We find that with the proper scaling factors, the evolution of the jet profile can collapse into a master profile for different fluids and impact velocities. The time dependence of the necking diameter before the jet breakup follows the power law with an exponent of ~2/3. Contrastingly, for other jet parameters such as the radius and height, the power law relationship with time dependence was not found to have a clear pattern that emerged from these studies. 

Diatoms are a group of single-celled photosynthetic algae that use biochemical pathways to bio-mineralize and self-assemble three-dimensional photonic crystals with unique photonic and micro- & nano-fluidic properties. In recent years, diatom biosilica has been used in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) based optofluidic sensors for detection of a variety of chemical and biological molecules. In this paper, we present a study to develop a microfluidic pumping system using super-hydrophilic diatom thin films. The desire to develop such a system stems from the requirement to create a low-cost, self-powered microfluidic pumping system that can sustain a continuous flow over an extended period of time. The diatom biosilica acts not only as the driving force behind the flow, but also serves as ultra-sensitive SERS substrates that allows for trace detection of various molecules. Liquid is drawn from a reservoir to the tip of a 150μm inner diameter capillary tube positioned directly over the diatom film. A thin and long horizontal reservoir is used to prevent flooding on the diatom film when the liquid is initially drawn to the diatom film through a capillary tube from the reservoir. The connection of the meniscus from the capillary to the film was maintained from a horizontal reservoir for a recorded time of 20 hours and 32 minutes before the partially filled reservoir emptied. Flow rates of 0.38, 0.22 and 0.16µL/min were achieved for square biosilica thin films of 49mm2, 25mm2, and 9mm2 at a temperature of 63̊F and 45% relative humidity respectively. A temperature-controlled system was introduced for the 49mm2 substrate and flow rates of 0.60, 0.82, 0.93, and 1.15µL/min were observed at 72, 77, 86, and 95̊F at 21% relative humidity respectively. More testing and analysis will be performed to test the operation limits of the proposed self-powered microfluidic system.