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Drops Can Perpetually Bounce over a Vibrating Wettable Solid

Lebo Molefe1,2,*, Tomas Fullana2,*,†, François Gallaire2, and John M. Kolinski1

  • 1Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces (EMSI) Laboratory, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 2Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Instabilities (LFMI), EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: tomas.fullana@epfl.ch
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 144001 – Published 2 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/w3qq-cnj3

Abstract

On the surface of a vibrating liquid bath, instead of coalescing, a drop will continually bounce on a thin film of air between the drop and the free surface, giving rise to rich chaotic dynamics and quantum analog behavior. However, perpetual bouncing is yet to be demonstrated on a vibrating rigid solid, where the control of the drop’s motion is not limited by the bath dynamics. Here we show that vibration of an atomically smooth mica surface prolongs a drop’s hovering state by several orders of magnitude, increasing the time to wet from less than a second to several minutes. The excitation of the second spherical harmonic mode determines a transition between a bouncing state with high-amplitude rebounds, and a bound state, where the drop’s motion is locked onto the vibrating solid above a thin air layer. We further develop a coupled linear spring model, accounting for the drop’s deformation, that predicts bouncing trajectories without fitting parameters. Our results extend the scope of bouncing drop studies beyond the liquid bath and highlight the potential for precision manipulation of small liquid quantities in air.

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Drops Hover Indefinitely Above Vibrating Solid Surface

Published 2 October, 2025

An atomically smooth surface that oscillates vertically can host drops that either bounce or hover in place, depending on the oscillation frequency.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 144001– Published 2 October, 2025
  • Received 7 May 2025
  • Accepted 12 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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