Surfactant-laden janus droplets with tunable morphologies and enhanced stability for fabricating lens-shaped polymeric microparticles

Abstract

Janus droplets can function as excellent templates for fabricating physically and chemically anisotropic particles. Here, we report new surfactant-laden Janus droplets with curvature con-trollability and enhanced stability against coalescence, suitable for fabricating shape-anisotropic polymer microparticles. Using a microfluidic flow-focusing device on a glass chip, nanoliter-sized biphasic droplets, comprising an acrylate monomer segment and a silicone-oil (SO) segment containing a surfactant, were produced in a co-flowing aqueous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution. At equilibrium, the droplets formed a Janus geometry based on the minimization of interfacial energy, and each of the two Janus segments were uniform in size with coefficient-of-variation values below 3%. By varying the concentration of the surfactant in the SO phase, the curvature of the interface between the two lobes could be shifted among concave, planar, and convex shapes. In addition, the Janus droplets exhibited significantly improved stability against coalescence compared with previously reported Janus droplets carrying no surfactant that coalesced rapidly. Finally, via off-chip photopolymerization, concave-convex, planar-convex, and biconvex lens-shaped particles were fabricated.