In Situ Simultaneous Measuring Forces Acted on Individual Legs of Water Striders According to Archimedes' Principle

The supporting forces of all the legs have been simultaneously measured through a natural phenomenon inspired shadow method, by capturing water strider leg shadows to calculate the expelled water volume and the equivalent floating forces according to Archimedes' principle, with a sensitivity up to nN~pN/pixel. The method was verified by comparing to electronic balance to weight water striders. The supporting force acted on legs was found to linearly proportional to its shadow area, which geometry clearly indicated the hydrophobicity of legs. The pressed depth of legs, vertical weight focus position change and body pitch angle during leg refreshing, sculling and jumping forward of water striders have been achieved with resolutions of 5um/pixel, 2 um/pixel, and 0.02 degree, respectively, which is difficult for general imaging technologies. The shadow method was also developed into a force measuring device and characterized the adhesion force of a hair/polymer surface contact in a few uN with a 0.3 nN/pixel resolution.