While many recent studies have confirmed the existence of liquid slip over certain solid surfaces, there has not been a deliberate effort to design and fabricate a surface that would maximize the slip under practical conditions. Here, we have engineered a nanostructured superhydrophobic surface that minimizes the liquid-solid contact area so that the liquid flows predominantly over a layer of air. Measured through a cone-and-plate rheometer system, the surface has demonstrated dramatic slip effects: a slip length of $\sim 20\mu \mathrm{m}$ for water flow and $\sim 50\mu \mathrm{m}$ for 30 wt % glycerin. The essential geometrical characteristics lie with the nanoposts populated on the surface: tall and slender (i.e., needlelike) profile and submicron periodicity (i.e., pitch).

The slip effects of water flow in hydrophilic and hydrophobic microchannels of 1 and 2 μm depth are examined experimentally. High-precision microchannels were treated chemically to enhance their hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties. The flow rates of pure water at various applied pressure differences for each surface condition were measured using a high-precision flow metering system and compared to a theoretical model that allows for a slip velocity at the solid surface. The slip length was found to vary approximately linearly with the shear rate with values of approximately 30 nm for the flow of water over hydrophobic surfaces at a shear rate of ${10}^5 {\mathrm{s}}^{\text{−1}}.$ The existence of slip over the hydrophilic surface remains uncertain, due to the sensitivity of the current analysis to nanometer uncertainties in the channel height.

We study experimentally how two key geometric parameters (pitch and gas fraction) of textured hydrophobic surfaces affect liquid slip. The two are independently controlled on precisely fabricated microstructures of posts and grates, and the slip length of water on each sample is measured using a rheometer system. The slip length increases linearly with the pitch but dramatically with the gas fraction above 90%, the latter trend being more pronounced on posts than on grates. Once the surfaces are designed for very large slips ($>20\mu \mathrm{m}$), however, further increase is not obtained in regular practice because the meniscus loses its stability. By developing near-perfect samples that delay the transition from a dewetted (Cassie) to a wetted (Wenzel) state until near the theoretical limit, we achieve giant slip lengths, as large as $185\mu \mathrm{m}$.

Enabled by a technology to fabricate well-defined nanogrates over a large area $(2\times 2{\mathrm{cm}}^2)$ , we report the effect of such a surface, in both hydrophilic and hydrophobic conditions, on liquid slip and the corresponding friction reduction in microchannels. The grates are designed to be dense ($\sim 230\mathrm{nm}$ pitch) but deep $(\sim 500\mathrm{nm})$ in order to sustain a large amount of air in the troughs when the grates are hydrophobic, even under pressurized liquid flow conditions (e.g., more than $1\mathrm{bar}$ ). A noticeable slip (i.e., slip length of $100–200\mathrm{nm}$ , corresponding to 20%–30% reduction of pressure drop in a $\sim 3\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ high channel) is observed for water flowing parallel over the hydrophobic nanogrates; this is believed to be an “effective” slip generated by the nanostrips of air in the grate troughs under the liquid. The effective slip is clearer and larger in flows parallel to the nanograting patterns than in transverse, suggesting that the nanograted superhydrophobic surfaces would not only reduce friction in liquid flows under pressure but also enable directional control of the slip. This paper is the first to use nanoscale grating patterns and to measure their effect on liquid flows in microchannels.

A gas in between micro- or nanostructures on a submerged superhydrophobic (SHPo) surface allows the liquid on the structures to flow with an effective slip. If large enough, this slippage may entail a drag reduction appreciable for many flow systems. However, the large discrepancies among the slippage levels reported in the literature have led to a widespread misunderstanding on the drag-reducing ability of SHPo surfaces. Today we know that the amount of slip, generally quantified with a slip length, is mainly determined by the structural features of SHPo surfaces, such as the pitch, solid fraction, and pattern type, and further affected by secondary factors, such as the state of the liquid–gas interface. Reviewing the experimental data of laminar flows in the literature comprehensively and comparing them with the theoretical predictions, we provide a global picture of the liquid slip on structured surfaces to assist in rational design of SHPo surfaces for drag reduction. Because the trapped gas, called plastron, vanishes along with its slippage effect in most application conditions, lastly we discuss the recent efforts to prevent its loss. This review is limited to laminar flows, for which the SHPo drag reduction is reasonably well understood.