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This paper presents a method for generating dynamic caustic patterns by utilising dual-optimised holographic fields with Phased Array Transducer (PAT). Building on previous research in static caustic optimisation and ultrasonic manipulation, this approach employs computational techniques to dynamically shape fluid surfaces, thereby creating controllable and real-time caustic images. The system employs a Digital Twin framework, which enables iterative feedback and refinement, thereby improving the accuracy and quality of the caustic patterns produced. This paper extends the foundational work in caustic generation by integrating liquid surfaces as refractive media. This concept has previously been explored in simulations but not fully realised in practical applications. The utilisation of ultrasound to directly manipulate these surfaces enables the generation of dynamic caustics with a high degree of flexibility. The Digital Twin approach further enhances this process by allowing for precise adjustments and optimisation based on real-time feedback. Experimental results demonstrate the technique’s capacity to generate continuous animations and complex caustic patterns at high frequencies. Although there are limitations in contrast and resolution compared to solid-surface methods, this approach offers advantages in terms of real-time adaptability and scalability. This technique has the potential to be applied in a number of areas, including interactive displays, artistic installations and educational tools. This research builds upon the work of previous researchers in the fields of caustics optimisation, ultrasonic manipulation, and computational displays. Future research will concentrate on enhancing the resolution and intricacy of the generated patterns.

This paper reports the noncontact manipulation of free-falling cylindrical streams of liquid metals into unique shapes, such as levitated loops and squares. Such cylindrical streams form in aqueous media by electrochemically lowering the interfacial tension. The electrochemical reactions require an electrical current that flows through the streams, making them susceptible to the Lorentz force. Consequently, varying the position and shape of a magnetic field relative to the stream controls these forces. Moreover, the movement of the metal stream relative to the magnetic field induces significant forces arising from Lenz’s law that cause the manipulated streams to levitate in unique shapes. The ability to control streams of liquid metals in a noncontact manner will enable strategies for shaping electronically conductive fluids for advanced manufacturing and dynamic electronic structures.

The ability to regulate interfacial and wetting properties is highly demanded in anti-icing, anti-biofouling, and medical and energy applications. Recent work on liquid-infused systems achieved switching wetting properties, which allow us to turn between slip and pin states. However, patterning the wetting of surfaces in a dynamic fashion still remains a challenge. In this work, we use programmable wetting to activate and propel droplets over large distances. We achieve this with liquid-infused soft magnetic carpets (SMCs) that consist of pillars that are responsive to external magnetic stimuli. Liquid-infused SMCs, which are sticky for a water droplet, become slippery upon application of a magnetic field. Application of a patterned magnetic field results in a patterned wetting on the SMC. A traveling magnetic field wave translates the patterned wetting on the substrate, which allows droplet manipulation. The droplet speed increases with an increased contact angle and with the droplet size, which offers a potential method to sort and separate droplets with respect to their contact angle or size. Furthermore, programmable control of the droplet allows us to conduct reactions by combining droplets loaded with reagents. Such an ability of conducting small-scale reactions on SMCs has the potential to be used for automated analytical testing, diagnostics, and screening, with a potential to reduce the chemical waste.

In nature, fluid manipulations are ubiquitous in organisms, and they are crucial for many of their vital activities. Therefore, this process has also attracted widescale research attention. However, despite significant advances in fluid transportation research over the past few decades, it is still hugely challenging to achieve efficient and nondestructive droplet transportation owing to contamination effects and controllability problems in liquid transportation applications. To this end, inspired by the motile microcilia of micro‐organisms, the superhydrophobicity of lotus leaves, the underwater superoleophobicity of filefish skin, and pigeons' migration behavior, a novel manipulation strategy is developed for droplets motion. Specifically, herein, a superwettable magnetic microcilia array surface with a structure that is switchable by an external magnetic field is constructed for droplet manipulation. It is found that under external magnetic fields, the superhydrophobic magnetic microcilia array surface can continuously and directionally manipulate the water droplets in air and that the underwater superoleophobic magnetic microcilia array surface can control the oil droplets underwater. This work demonstrates that the nondestructive droplet transportation mechanism can be used for liquid transportation, droplet reactions, and micropipeline transmission, thus opening up an avenue for practical applications of droplet manipulation using intelligent microstructure surfaces. A bioinspired, multifunctional, and magnetocontrollable superwettable‐microcilia surface device to manipulate droplets is engineered and fabricated. Droplets can be continuously transported in a specified direction via a superwettable microcilia array surface whose structure can be switched between different states via an external magnetic field. Applications include nondestructive droplet transportation, drug delivery systems, droplet reactions, liquid transportation, and micropipeline transmission.

The use of ‘Electrostatic tweezers’ is a promising tool for droplet manipulation, but it faces many limitations in manipulating droplets on superhydrophobic surfaces. Here, we achieve noncontact and multifunctional droplet manipulation on Nepenthes-inspired lubricated slippery surfaces via triboelectric electrostatic tweezers (TETs). The TET manipulation of droplets on a slippery surface has many advantages over electrostatic droplet manipulation on a superhydrophobic surface. The electrostatic field induces the redistribution of the charges inside the neutral droplet, which causes the triboelectric charged rod to drive the droplet to move forward under the electrostatic force. Positively or negatively charged droplets can also be driven by TET based on electrostatic attraction and repulsion. TET enables us to manipulate droplets under diverse conditions, including anti-gravity climb, suspended droplets, corrosive liquids, low-surface-tension liquids (e.g. ethanol with a surface tension of 22.3 mN·m −1 ), different droplet volumes (from 100 nl to 0.5 ml), passing through narrow slits, sliding over damaged areas, on various solid substrates, and even droplets in an enclosed system. Various droplet-related applications, such as motion guidance, motion switching, droplet-based microreactions, surface cleaning, surface defogging, liquid sorting, and cell labeling, can be easily achieved with TETs. Nepenthes-inspired lubricated slippery surfaces are prepared by a femtosecond laser. Droplet on the slippery surface can be manipulated by triboelectric charged rod. (3) Electrostatic tweezer is designed for achieving multifunctional droplet manipulation. Electrostatic tweezer enables manipulate droplets under diverse conditions. Various droplet-related applications can be achieved with electrostatic tweezer.

Noncontact optical trapping and manipulation of micrometer- and nanometer-sized particles are typically achieved by use of forces and torques exerted by tightly focused high-intensity laser beams. Although they were instrumental for many scientific breakthroughs, these approaches find few technological applications mainly because of the small-area manipulation capabilities, the need for using high laser powers, limited application to anisotropic fluids and low-refractive-index particles, as well as complexity of implementation. To overcome these limitations, recent research efforts have been directed toward extending the scope of noncontact optical control through the use of optically-guided electrokinetic forces, vortex laser beams, plasmonics, and optofluidics. Here we demonstrate manipulation of colloidal particles and self-assembled structures in nematic liquid crystals by means of single-molecule-thick, light-controlled surface monolayers. Using polarized light of intensity from 1,000 to 100,000 times smaller than that in conventional optical tweezers, we rotate, translate, localize, and assemble spherical and complex-shaped particles of various sizes and compositions. By controlling boundary conditions through the monolayer, we manipulate the liquid crystal director field and the landscape of ensuing elastic forces exerted on colloids by the host medium. This permits the centimeter-scale, massively parallel manipulation of particles and complex colloidal structures that can be dynamically controlled by changing illumination or assembled into stationary stable configurations dictated by the \"memorized\" optoelastic potential landscape due to the last illumination pattern. We characterize the strength of optically guided elastic forces and discuss the potential uses of this noncontact manipulation in fabrication of novel optically- and electrically-tunable composites from liquid crystals and colloids.

We report magnetic-field-induced liquid metal droplet on-demand manipulation by coating a liquid metal with ferromagnetic materials. The gallium-based liquid metal alloy has a challenging drawback that it is instantly oxidized in ambient air, resulting in surface wetting on most surfaces. When the oxidized surface of the droplet is coated with ferromagnetic materials, it is non-wettable and can be controlled by applying an external magnetic field. We coated the surface of a liquid metal droplet with either an electroplated CoNiMnP layer or an iron (Fe) particle by simply rolling the liquid metal droplet on an Fe particle bed. For a paper towel, the minimum required magnetic flux density to initiate movement of the ~8 μL Fe-particle-coated liquid metal droplet was 50 gauss. Magnetic-field-induced liquid metal droplet manipulation was investigated under both horizontal and vertical magnetic fields. Compared to the CoNiMnP-electroplated liquid metal droplet, the Fe-particle-coated droplet could be well controlled because Fe particles were uniformly coated on the surface of the droplet. With a maximum applied magnetic flux density of ~1,600 gauss, the CoNiMnP layer on the liquid metal broke down, resulting in fragmentation of three smaller droplets, and the Fe particle was detached from the liquid metal surface and was re-coated after the magnetic field had been removed.

Liquid manipulation using tubular actuators finds diverse applications ranging from microfluidics, printing, liquid transfer to micro‐reactors. Achieving flexible and simple regulation of manipulated liquid droplets during transport is crucial for the tubular liquid actuators to perform complex and multiple functions, yet it remains challenging. Here, a facile tubular actuator for directional transport of various liquid droplets under the control of an externally applied magnetic field is presented. The surfaces of the actuator can be engineered with submillimeter‐sized through‐hole pores, which enables the liquid droplet to be easily modulated in the transport process. Furthermore, the liquid actuator with featured through‐hole pores is expanded to function as a switch in an integrated external electric circuit by magnetically controlling the motion of a conductive liquid droplet. This work develops a strategy for regulating liquid droplets in the tubular actuation systems, which may inspire ideas for designing functional liquid actuators with potential applications in microfluidics, microchemical reaction, liquid switch, and liquid robotics. To achieve flexible and simple regulation of liquid droplets in closed liquid transport systems, a new type of tubular liquid actuators with surface pore engineering is developed. Under the control of an external magnetic field, the liquid droplet in the actuator can be manipulated for movement, physical/chemical modulation, or serving as a switch in an integrated external electric circuit.

Manipulating small‐volume liquids is crucial in natural processes and industrial applications. However, most liquid manipulation technologies involve complex energy inputs or non‐adjustable wetting gradient surfaces. Here, a simple and adjustable 3D liquid manipulation paradigm is reported to control liquid behaviors by coupling liquid–air–solid interfacial energy with programmable magnetic fields. This paradigm centers around a hierarchical rectifier with magnetized microratchets, using Laplace pressure asymmetry to enable multimodal directional steering of various surface tension liquids (23–72 mN m−1). The scale‐dependent effect in microratchet design shows its superiority in handling small‐volume liquids across three orders of magnitude (100–103 µL). Under programmed magnetic fields, the rectifier can reconfigure its morphology to harness interfacial energy to exhibit richer liquid behaviors without dynamic real‐time control. Reconfigured rectifiers show improved rectification performance in the inertia‐dominant fluid regime, i.e., a remarkable 2000‐fold increase in the critical Weber number for pure ethanol. Moreover, the rectifier's switchable reconfigurations offer flexible control over liquid transport directions and spatiotemporally controllable 3D liquid manipulation reminiscent of inchworm motions. This scalable liquid manipulation paradigm promotes versatile engineering and biochemistry applications, e.g., portable liquid purity testing (screening resolution <1 mN m−1), logical open‐channel microfluidics, and automated chemical reaction platforms. A new 3D liquid manipulation paradigm, coupling reconfigurable rectifiers and pre‐programmed static magnetic fields, enables selective directional transport (for 23–72 mN m−1 liquids) and spatiotemporally‐controlled biomimetic spreading. This active‐passive‐hybrid approach mitigates the trade‐off between simplicity and flexibility in liquid manipulation, showing potentials in portable liquid purity detection, logical open‐channel microfluidics, and automated biochemical platforms.

Unidirectional liquid spreading without energy input is of significant interest for the broad applications in diverse fields such as water harvesting, drop transfer, oil–water separation and microfluidic devices. However, the controllability of liquid motion and the simplification of manufacturing process remain challenges. Inspired by the peristome of Nepenthes alata, a surface-tension-confined (STC) channel with biomimetic microcavities was fabricated facilely through UV exposure photolithography and partial plasma treatment. Perfect asymmetric liquid spreading was achieved by combination of microcavities and hydrophobic boundary, and the stability of pinning effect was demonstrated. The influences of structural features of microcavities on both liquid spreading and liquid pinning were investigated and the underlying mechanism was revealed. We also demonstrated the spontaneous unidirectional transport of liquid in 3D space and on tilting slope. In addition, through changing pits arrangement and wettability pattern, complex liquid motion paths and microreactors were realized. This work will open a new way for liquid manipulation and lab-on-chip applications.