Study of transitions between wetting states on microcavity arrays by optical transmission microscopy.

In this article, we present a simple and fast optical method based on transmission microscopy to study the stochastic wetting transitions on micro- and nanostructured polymer surfaces immersed in water. We analyze the influence of immersion time and the liquid pressure on the degree of water intrusion in individual microcavities on these surfaces as well as the lifespan of their superhydrophobicity. We show that transitions among the three wetting states (Cassie, Cassie-impregnating, and Wenzel) occur with a certain pressure threshold (300 mbar for a microcavity diameter of 7.

Structure irregularity impedes drop roll-off at superhydrophobic surfaces.

We study water drop roll-off at superhydrophobic surfaces with different surface patterns. Superhydrophobic microcavity surfaces were fabricated in silicon and coated with 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane (FDTS). For the more irregular surface patterns, the observed increase in roll-off angles is found to be caused by a decrease of the receding contact angle, which in turn is caused by an increase of the triple phase contact line of the drops for those more irregular surfaces.