Tunable encapsulation of sessile droplets with solid and liquid shells

Abstract

Droplet encapsulations using liquid or solid shells are of significant interest in microreactors, drug delivery, crystallization, and cell growth applications. Despite progress in droplet-related technologies, tuning micron-scale shell thickness over a large range of droplet sizes is still a major challenge. In this work, we report capillary force assisted cloaking using hydrophobic colloidal particles and liquid-infused surfaces. The technique produces uniform solid and liquid shell encapsulations over a broad range (5–200 μm shell thickness for droplet volume spanning over four orders of magnitude). Tunable liquid encapsulation is shown to reduce the evaporation rate of droplets by up to 200 times with a wide tunability in lifetime (1.5 h to 12 days). Further, we propose using the technique for single crystals and cell/spheroid culture platforms. Stimuli-responsive solid shells show hermetic encapsulation with tunable strength and dissolution time. Moreover, scalability, and versatility of the technique is demonstrated for on-chip applications.