Impalement of fakir drops

Water drops deposited on hydrophobic materials decorated with dilute micro-posts generally form pearls. Owing to the hydrophobicity of the material, the drop sits on the top of the posts. However, this "fakir state" is often metastable: if the drop impales inside the texture, its surface energy is lowered. Here we discuss the transition between these two states, considering the drop size as a parameter for inducing this transition: remarkably, it is found that a drop impales when it becomes small, which is interpreted by considering its curvature. This interpretation allows us to propose different recipes for avoiding this detrimental effect. © Europhysics Letters Association.