Optical manipulation of microscale fluid flow

A novel optical method is used both to probe and to control dynamics in experiments on the spreading of microscale liquid films over solid substrates. The flow is manipulated by thermally induced surface-tension gradients that are regulated by controlling the absorption of light in the substrate. This approach permits, for the first time, the measurement of the dispersion relation for the well-known contact line instability; the measurements are compared with theoretical predictions from the slip model for spreading films. The experiments also demonstrate the use of feedback control to suppress instability. These results show that optical control can provide dynamically reconfigurable manipulations of fluid flow, thereby suggesting a general approach for constructing reprogrammable microfluidic devices.