Definition
Making a surface more wetting to a liquid by applying voltages.
Introduction
When a material (typically solid) and a liquid are in contact, the application of an electric potential between them may cause the wettability of the material to increase, which is exhibited by a decrease of the observed contact angle. This phenomenon is called electrowetting – a term reminiscent of the more traditional electrocapillarity. In recent years, the development of various electrode and material configurations for technological applications – mostly in the rapidly expanding field of microfluidics – has given rise to additional terms such as electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD). Because technologies relying on the actuation of liquids by applied electrical potentials are still new, the terms used to describe such systems can be difficult to...
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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kim, C.J. (2016). Electrowetting. In: Bhushan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Nanotechnology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9780-1_305
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9780-1_305
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