Comment on "Self-Running Droplet: Emergence of Regular Motion from Nonequilibrium Noise"

Abstract

In a recent Letter (Y. Sumino et al., PRL 94, 068301 (2005)) a spontaneous motion of an oil droplet in the surrounding aqueous media along a glass surface was reported. The authors suggested that the self-locomotion is driven by a difference in wettability between the front and the rear of a droplet sustained by its translational motion. We disagree with the author's explanations. We analyzed the supplementary materials provided by Sumino et al. and found that their data did not support their conclusions. We provide an interpretation of the experimental data of Sumino et al. and the underlying physical mechanism of the self-locomotion.