Wetting and Roughness: Part 1

Wetting and Roughness: Part 1 Microtextured Solids and Hemiwicking

Authors: David Quere

Annu. Rev. Mater. Res. 2008. 38:71–99

Soft matter keywords

microtextures, superhydrophobicity, wicking, slip

By Alex Epstein

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Abstract from the original paper

We discuss in this review how the roughness of a solid impacts its wettability. We see in particular that both the apparent contact angle and the contact angle hysteresis can be dramatically affected by the presence of roughness. Owing to the development of refined methods for setting very well-controlled micro- or nanotextures on a solid, these effects are being exploited to induce novel wetting properties, such as spontaneous filmification, superhydrophobicity, superoleophobicity, and interfacial slip, that could not be achieved without roughness.

Soft matters

Fig. 1 (a) Water-drop profiles for the nano-structured V2O5. (b) SEM of a rose-garden-like nanostructure V2O5 substrate. (c) XPS of the O 1s level before and after UV irradiation. (d) Reversible wettability transitions through UV exposure and dark storage, respectively.

References

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