# Wetting in the presence of the electric field: The classical density functional theory study for a model system

## TL;DR

This study uses classical density functional theory to analyze how an external electric field influences the wetting behavior of a liquid on a solid surface, revealing that electric fields can significantly increase the contact angle.

## Contribution

It introduces a quantum-mechanically informed model of a two-level-atom fluid to study electric field effects on wetting within a classical DFT framework.

## Key findings

- Electric field can noticeably increase the contact angle.
- The model links quantum perturbation effects to macroscopic wetting behavior.
- Wetting properties are tunable via external electric fields.

## Abstract

We discuss the effect of an external electric field on the wetting of a solid surface by liquid. To this end, we use a model of the two-level-atom fluid for which the changes in interatomic interactions due to the presence of the field can be found using quantum-mechanical perturbation theory. Constructing the grand potential functional, we perform the standard calculations of Young's equilibrium contact angle. The switching on of the electric field $|{\bf {E}}| > 0$ may increase noticeably the contact angle $\theta$.