Electrowetting and Surface Tension of Chromonic Liquid Crystals

In this work, we report on measurements of the contact angle of sessile droplets of aqueous solutions of a chromonic liquid crystal at different temperatures and concentrations and on different hydrophobic surfaces, and we show that the wettability of this complex fluid can be easily controlled by an external electric field. Specifically, electrically induced variations of the contact angle up to 70 degrees were obtained using external DC voltages. Complementary tensiometric measurements of the aqueous solutions confirmed that the observed variations in the contact angle were mainly related to variations in the surface tension, while they did not show an evident connection with the internal molecular order of the liquid crystal droplets. Our study is relevant in view of the use of chromonic liquid crystals in microfluidic devices, where the control of wettability is an important tool for handling fluid flow.