Evaporation dynamics of femtoliter water capillary bridges

Capillary bridges are usually formed by a small liquid volume in confined space between two solid surfaces and particularly they have lower internal pressure than 1 atm at femtoliter scales. Femtoliter capillary bridges exhibit rapid evaporation rates. To quantify detailed evaporation kinetics of femtoliter bridges, we present a feasible protocol to directly visualize femtoliter water bridges that evaporate in still air between a microsphere and a flat substrate by utilizing transmission X-ray microscopy. Precise measurements of evaporation kinetics for water bridges indicate that lower water pressure than 1 atm can significantly decelerate evaporation by suppression of vapor diffusion. This finding would provide a consensus to understand evaporation of ultrasmall capillary bridges. \newline