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Spatial control of wettability is key to many applications of microfluidicdevices, ranging from double emulsion generation to localized cell adhesion. Anumber of techniques, often based on masking, have been developed to producespatially-resolved wettability patterns at the surface ofpoly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) elastomers. A major impediment they face is thenatural hydrophobic recovery of PDMS: hydrophilized PDMS surfaces tend toreturn to hydrophobicity with time, mainly because of diffusion of lowmolecular weight silicone species to the surface. Instead of trying to avoidthis phenomenon, we propose in this work to take advantage of hydrophobicrecovery to modulate spatially the surface wettability of PDMS. Becausetemperature speeds up the rate of hydrophobic recovery, we show thatspace-resolved hydrophobic patterns can be produced by locally heating aplasma-hydrophilized PDMS surface with microresistors. Importantly, localwettability is quantified in microchannels using a fluorescent probe. This"thermo-patterning" technique provides a simple route to in situ wettabilitypatterning in closed PDMS chips, without requiring further surface chemistry.

Wettability patterning in microfluidic devices using thermally-enhanced hydrophobic recovery of PDMS