Directional water self‐transport plays a crucial role in diverse applications such as biosensing and water harvesting. Despite extensive progress, current strategies for directional water self‐transport are restricted to a short self‐driving distance, single function, and complicated fabrication methods. Here, a lubricant‐infused heterogeneous superwettability surface (LIHSS) for directional water self‐transport is proposed on polyimide (PI) film through femtosecond laser direct writing and lubricant infusion. By tuning the parameters of the femtosecond laser, the wettability of PI film can be transformed into superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic. After trapping water droplets on the superhydrophilic surface and depositing excess lubricant, the asymmetrical wetting ridge drives water droplets by an attractive capillary force on the LIHSS. Notably, the maximum droplet self‐driving distance can approach ≈3 mm, which is nearly twice as long as the previously reported strategies for direction water self‐transport. Significantly, it is demonstrated that this strategy makes it possible to achieve water self‐transport, anti‐gravity pumping, and chemical microreaction on a tilted LIHSS. This work provides an efficient method to fabricate a promising platform for realizing directional water self‐transport.

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Versatile liquid manipulating surfaces combining patternable and controllable wettability have recently motivated considerable attention owing to their significant advantages in droplet-solid impacting behaviors, microdroplet self-removal, and liquid–liquid interface reaction applications. However, developing a facile and efficient method to fabricate these versatile surfaces remains an enormous challenge. In this paper, a strategy for the fabrication of liquid manipulating surfaces with patternable and controllable wettability on Polyimide (PI) film based on femtosecond laser thermal accumulation engineering is proposed. Because of its controllable micro-/nanostructures and chemical composition through adjusting the local thermal accumulation, the wettability of PI film can be tuned from superhydrophilicity (~ 3.6°) to superhydrophobicity (~ 151.6°). Furthermore, three diverse surfaces with patternable and heterogeneous wettability were constructed and various applications were successfully realized, including water transport, droplet arrays, and liquid wells. This work may provide a facile strategy for achieving patternable and controllable wettability efficiently and developing multifunctional liquid steering surfaces.

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