![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/the-tiny-droplets-that.jpg\" "\\"Schematic")
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Schematic of the experimental setup. Credit: 2025 EMSI LFMI EPFL CC BY SA<\/p>\n
EPFL researchers have discovered that a droplet of liquid can bounce for several minutes\u2014and perhaps indefinitely\u2014over a vibrating solid surface. The seemingly simple observation has big implications for physics and chemistry.<\/p>\n
If you’ve ever added liquid to a hot frying pan, maybe you noticed how the droplets<\/a> bubbled up and skittered across the sizzling surface, rather than immediately flattening and wetting. This happens because the pan’s heat starts boiling the undersides of the droplets, producing vapor that acts as an insulating cushion on which they can\u2014momentarily\u2014dance.<\/p>\n Previously, scientists have produced a room-temperature<\/a> version of this phenomenon\u2014known as the Leidenfrost effect\u2014by replacing the hot surface with a rapidly vibrating liquid bath. In these experiments, the vibrations produced a thin film of air on which the liquid droplets could bounce and hover perpetually.<\/p>\n Now, researchers in EPFL’s School of Engineering have shown experimentally that an oil droplet<\/a> can bounce on a vibrating solid surface<\/a> at room temperature for up to five minutes.<\/p>\n “What’s interesting here is that previous observations of perpetually bouncing droplets were determined by the changing surface of the vibrating liquid bath, but in our case the surface is solid, so the drop’s own deformations are driving its unique behavior,” explains John Kolinski, head of the Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces Lab.<\/p>\n “Our work provides new physics insights and highlights the potential for precision manipulation of small liquid quantities in air.”<\/p>\n The scientists have published their observations, along with a model to explain and predict them, in the journal Physical Review Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n