Smart surfaces with tunable wettability have aroused much attention in the past few years. However, to obtain a surface that can reversibly transit between the lotus-leaf-like superhydrophobic isotropic and rice-leaf-like superhydrophobic anisotropic wettings is still a challenge. This paper, by mimicking microstructures on both lotus and rice leaves, reports such a surface that is prepared by creating micro/nanostructured arrays on the shape memory polymer. On the surface, the microstructure shapes can be reversibly changed between the lotus-leaf-like random state and the rice-leaf-like 1D ordered state. Accordingly, repeated switch between the superhydrophobic isotropic and anisotropic wettings can be displayed. Research results indicate that the smart controllability is ascribed to the excellent shape memory effect of the polymer, which endows the surface with special ability in memorizing different microstructure shapes and wetting properties. Meanwhile, based on the smart wetting performances, the surface is further used as a rewritable functional platform, on which various droplet transportation programmes are designed and demonstrated. This work reports a superhydrophobic surface with switchable isotropic/anisotropic wettings, which not only provides a novel functional material but also opens a new avenue for application in controlled droplet transportation.

Inspired by the gecko's ability to reversibly stick and unstick to a variety of solid surfaces during locomotion, a new superhydrophobic iron surface that has a tunable adhesive force with the superparamagnetic microdroplet as a function of the magnetic field was fabricated by a simple and inexpensive method. The as‐prepared surface is low adhesive, and a superparamagnetic microdroplet can roll easily on the surface. After the surface is magnetized, it becomes highly adhesive, which can pin a superparamagnetic microdroplet. Further demagnetizing the surface that has been magnetized, a superparamagnetic microdroplet can roll on the surface again, indicating that the surface returns to its initial low adhesive state. Reversible transition between the high adhesive pinning state and low adhesive rolling state can be achieved by simply magnetizing and demagnetizing the surface alternately. The tunable effect maybe attribute to the cooperation of the soft ferromagnetic property of iron plate and the microstructure on the surface. Such intelligent surface could potentially be used in a wide range of applications such as biochemical separation, no‐loss transport of microdroplet, and in situ detection.

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