Numerical and experimental investigation of bubble dynamics via electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD)

With the inspiration from electrowetting-controlled droplets, the potential advantages of electrowetting for bubble dynamics are investigated experimentally and numerically. In our experimental system, a 100 nanometer thin film gold metal was used as an electrode, and a 6.5 micrometer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was spin-coated on the electrode acting both as an dielectric layer and hydrophobic surface. A two-phase model coupled with a electrostatics was used in our simulation work, where the body force due to the electric field acts as an external force. Our numerical results demonstrated that electrowetting can help the detachment of a small bubble by changing the apparent contact angle. Similar results were observed in our experiments that with electrowetting on dielectric, the contact angle of bubble on a hydrophobic surface will obviously decrease when a certain electrical field is applied either with a small size bubble (diameter around 1mm) or a relatively larger size bubble (diameter around 3 mm). When the applied voltage becomes high enough, both the experimental and numerical results demonstrate the characteristics of bubble detachment within a thin film liquid layer.