Capillary origami

The wet fur of a dog coming out of a pond assembles into bunches: this is the most common effect of capillary forces on elasticity structures (the hairs). From a practical point of view, the deformation of flexible elements by surface tension forces dramatically damages mechanical microsystems or lung airways, but also allows the self-organization of nanotube carpets into well defined clump patterns. But capillary forces may generate even more complex structures when flexible sheets are brought to contact with a liquid interface. Here we present experiments where surface tension folds up an elastic sheet around a deposited water droplet, and discuss the different possible shapes obtained. These self-folding origami may be used in microsy stems design as a convenient and robust way to fold two-dimensional planar patterns into 3-dimensional structures, since surface tension effects are enhanced at small scales.