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Fast and programmable transport of liquid droplets on a solid substrate isdesirable in microfluidic, thermal, biomedical, and energy devices. Pastresearch has focused on designing substrates with asymmetric structures orgradient wettability where droplet behaviors are passively controlled, or byapplying external electric, thermal, magnetic, or acoustic stimuli that eitherrequire the fabrication of electrodes or a strong applied field. In this work,we demonstrate tunable and programmable droplet motion on liquid-infusedsurfaces (LIS) and inside solid-surface capillary channels using low-intensitylight and photo-responsive surfactants. When illuminated by the light ofappropriate wavelengths, the surfactants can reversibly change their molecularconformation thereby tuning interfacial tensions in a multi-phase fluid system.This generates a Marangoni flow that drives droplet motions. With two novelsurfactants that we synthesized, we demonstrate fast linear and complex 2Dmovements of droplets on liquid surfaces, on LIS, and inside microchannels. Wealso visualized the internal flow pattern using tracer particles and developedsimple scaling arguments to explain droplet-size-dependent velocity. The methoddemonstrated in this study serves as a simple and exciting new approach for thedynamic manipulation of droplets for microfluidic, thermal, and waterharvesting devices.

Real-time Manipulation of Liquid Droplets using Photo-responsive Surfactant