2008/01/29 by Jacco H. Snoeijer, Bruno Andreotti · 92 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Capillary action #Capillary pressure #Classical mechanics #Composite material #Condensed matter physics #Contact angle #Disjoining pressure #Fluid Dynamics and Thin Films #Homogeneous #Hysteresis #Intermolecular force #Materials science #Mechanics #Physics #Statistical physics #Surface Modification and Superhydrophobicity #Thermodynamics #Wetting #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.2913675
published in Physics of Fluids 20(5) (American Institute of Physics) · 12 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2008/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2008/05/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We discuss the equilibrium condition for a liquid that partially wets a solid on the level of intermolecular forces. By using a mean field continuum description, we generalize the capillary pressure from variation of the free energy and show at what length scale the equilibrium contact angle is selected. After recovering Young’s law for homogeneous substrates, it is shown how hysteresis of the contact angle can be incorporated in a self-consistent fashion. In all cases, the liquid-vapor interface takes a nontrivial shape, which is compared to models using a disjoining pressure.