High-throughput CW-IR laser deposition and laser microscope imaging of binary ionic liquids in vacuum.

A combinatorial library of binary mixtures of ionic liquids with various mixing ratios was fabricated on a single sapphire substrate using the composition-spread technique combined with a continuous-wave infrared (CW-IR) laser deposition method; the mixtures were condensed in the form of micro-scale droplets. The mixing ratio within the droplets was examined by Raman spectroscopy. The contact angle of the droplets was found to systematically vary with the mixing ratio. Their thermal behavior was characterized with an ultrahigh-vacuum laser microscope, revealing the dependence of the evaporation rate on the mixing ratio.