Realizing jumping detachment of condensed droplets from solid surfaces at the smallest sizes possible is vital for applications such as antifogging/frosting and heat transfer. For instance, if droplets uniformly jump at sizes smaller than visible light wavelengths of 400-720 nm, antifogging issues could be resolved. In comparison, the smallest droplets experimentally observed so far to jump uniformly were around 16 μm in radius. Here, we show molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of persistent droplet jumping with a uniform radius down to only 3.6 nm on superhydrophobic thin-walled lattice (TWL) nanostructures integrated with superhydrophilic nanospots. The size cutoff is attributed to the preferential cross-lattice coalescence of island droplets. As an application, the MD results exhibit a 10× boost in the heat transfer coefficient (HTC), showing a -1 scaling law with the maximum droplet radius. We provide phase diagrams for jumping and wetting behaviors to guide the design of lattice structures with advanced antidew performance.
Keywords: Jumping droplets; dropwise condensation; nanostructure; scaling law; superhydrophobic surface; wetting state.