Fig. 1.

Interactive behavior of water droplets on an oil-infused surface. (A) Droplets colliding at the liquid–air interfaces exhibited coalescence. (B) When the oil menisci of two droplets overlapped, an oil film formed between the droplets to enable noncoalescence. (C) Top-down and isometric photographs of noncoalescing droplets. (D) Multiple droplets could be connected into a network; due to the negligible hysteresis, these networks spontaneously rearranged over time to minimize their surface energy. (E) SEM of nanopillared substrate. The oils used were (A and B) Krytox 100 and (C and D) Fomblin 25/6; food coloring was used in D. See SI Appendix, Movies S1–S3.