Wetting theory for small droplets on textured solid surfaces

TL;DR

This paper develops a new wetting theory for finite-sized droplets on textured surfaces, revealing quantized contact angles and the limitations of conventional theories for small droplets.

Contribution

It introduces a free energy landscape approach applicable to any droplet size, explaining experimental results and pinning phenomena on textured surfaces.

Findings

Many quantized wetting angles with local free energy minima.

Conventional theories predict contact angles accurately only for droplets 40+ times the surface roughness.

Pinning originates from local free energy minima, with calculable energy barriers.

Abstract

Conventional wetting theories on rough surfaces with Wenzel, Cassie-Baxter, and Penetrate modes suggest the possibility of tuning the contact angle by adjusting the surface texture. Despite decades of intensive study, there are still many experimental results that are not well understood because conventional wetting theory, which assume an infinite droplet size, has been used to explain measurements of finite-sized droplets. In this study, we suggest a wetting theory that is applicable to any droplet size based on the free energy landscape analysis of various wetting modes of finite-sized droplets on a 2D textured surface. The key finding of our study is that there are many quantized wetting angles with local free energy minima; the implication of this is remarkable. We find that the conventional theories can predict the contact angle at the global free energy minimum if the droplet size is 40 times or larger than the characteristic scale of the surface roughness. Furthermore, we confirm that the pinning origin is the local free energy minima and obtain the energy barriers of pinning as a function of geometric factors. We validate our theory against experimental results on an anisotropic rough surface. In addition, we discuss wetting on a non-uniform rough surface with a rough central region and flat edge. Our findings clarify the extent to which the conventional wetting theory is valid and expand the physical understanding of wetting phenomena of small liquid drops on rough surfaces.