History electrowetting conferences:
Electrowetting obtained a boost in the mid 1990’s with the pioneering work of Bruno Berge and his co-workers who introduced insulating dielectric layers between the liquid drops and the actuation electrode(s) on the substrate. This breakthrough enabled for the first time a stable and very reliable electrical control of the wettability of surfaces for extended periods of time. A few years later, in 1998, the first still very small International Workshop on Electrowetting took place in Mons, Belgium, followed by ever growing meetings in- Enschede, Netherlands (2018).
- Taipei, Taiwan (2016).
- Cincinnati, USA (2014)
- Athens, Greece (2012)
- Pohang, Korea (2010)
- Rochester, USA (2006)
- Los Angeles, USA (2008)
- Blaubeuren, Germany (2004)
- Grenoble, France (2002)
- Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2000)
While the first meetings were still dominated by the development of the fundamental understanding of the electrowetting process in itself, prototypes of electrowetting-based devices such as tunable lenses, lab-on-a-chip systems and displays emerged since the early 2000s. Ever since, electrowetting has evolved into the arguably most versatile technique to manipulate drops on solid surfaces. The field became mature and reached a level, where electrowetting is used both as a scientific method to study fundamental aspects of wetting and drop dynamics at interfaces as well as a technological tool to implement a growing range of applications including nowadays also energy harvesting systems based on inverse electrowetting, phase transformations, and sample preparation technologies for various bioanalytical methods, including MALDI mass spectrometry.
In June 2018, the Electrowetting conference returns to its origins in the Netherlands. We want to make use of this opportunity to showcase very strong activities in electrowetting itself but also in the broader context droplet dynamics on electrically and otherwise functionalized solid surfaces. Based on the experience from previous conferences, we expect approximately 100 participants from the core community of electrowetting, including both academic researchers as well as companies (e.g. Liquavista, Illumina, Parrot, eMALDI). The goal is to complement this core community by attracting additional speakers from near and far that work on drop dynamics on functional surfaces in a broader sense, including e.g. passively structured surfaces, (visco)elastic surface materials, surface-acoustic waves, electrochemically active surfaces and materials, electrical sensing technologies, bio applications, etc. In this manner we aim to extend the scope of the meeting and include a broader audience interested in particular in fundamental aspects of fluid dynamics at solid-liquid interfaces. In this manner, we want to attract an important fraction of the fluid dynamics community interested in microfluidic phenomena, in particular from the Netherlands and neighboring European countries.
