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Influence of surface roughness on superhydrophobicity

C. Yang, U. Tartaglino, B. N. J. Persson

cond-mat.softarXiv:cond-mat/0604052

Abstract

Superhydrophobic surfaces, with liquid contact angle theta greater than 150 degree, have important practical applications ranging from self-cleaning window glasses, paints, and fabrics to low-friction surfaces. Many biological surfaces, such as the lotus leaf, have hierarchically structured surface roughness which is optimized for superhydrophobicity through natural selection. Here we present a molecular dynamics study of liquid droplets in contact with self-affine fractal surfaces. Our results indicate that the contact angle for nanodroplets depends strongly on the root-mean-square surface roughness amplitude but is nearly independent of the fractal dimension Df of the surface.

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