Fig. 3: Control of evaporation rate.

a Comparison of the temporal evolution of the normalized mass (\(m/{m}_{0}\)) of the droplet and LM in different configurations. Such configurations are droplet on SHP (red) and OI surface (silicone – green and mineral – cyan), LM on SHP surface (black), and LMOI based on silicone (blue) and mineral oil (magenta). The volume of the LM and droplet is 10 µL. All experiments were repeated n = 3 times independently, and the mean is plotted. b Schematic of LMOI defining various parameters important in the evaporation process where red color represents the oil layer and blue color region represents the water. c Comparison of the temporal evolution of normalized mass with the theoretical model. d High-temperature stabilization of 10 µL LMOI with mineral (blue color) and silicone (red color) oil. Measurements were carried out on n = 3 independent samples, and data are presented as mean values ± SD. e Effect of silicone oil viscosity on evaporation time of the 10 µL LMOI. The green dotted line divides the full and partial cloaking of LM (inset for schematic) based on viscosity. Measurements were carried out on n = 3 independent samples, and data are presented as mean values ± SD. f Tunability of evaporation rate by changing the oil and particle coating density/mass loading. In the horizontal axis, Si and Mi prefixes indicate the LMOI with silicone oil (purple color) and mineral oil (blue color); the suffix number represents the mass loading of the particle on LMOI in µg mm⁻². Insets represent the confocal images of the different mass loaded LMOI. Scale bars = 200 µm. Measurements were carried out on n = 3 independent samples, and data are presented as mean values ± SD. Black dots represent individual data points. All experiments are performed at 25 ± 2 °C and (50 ± 3)% relative humidity. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.