We show that when water droplets gently impact on a hydrophobic surface, the droplet shoots out a violent jet, the velocity of which can be up to 40 times the drop impact speed. As a function of the impact velocity, two different hydrodynamic singularities are found that correspond to the collapse of the air cavity formed by the deformation of the drop at impact. It is the collapse that subsequently leads to the jet formation. We show that the divergence of the jet velocity can be understood using simple scaling arguments. In addition, we find that very large air bubbles can remain trapped in the drops. The surprising occurrence of the bubbles for low-speed impact is connected with the nature of the singularities, and can have important consequences for drop deposition, e.g., in ink-jet printing.

• Received 21 November 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.124501