Superhydrophobicity of Silicon-Based Microstructured Surfaces

2014 ◽  
Vol 989-994 ◽  
pp. 267-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Li

Here, a simple method was presented for fabricating superhydrophobic silicon surfaces. Square-pillar-array samples were fabricated on silicon substrates by using the femtosecond laser micromachining technology. We measured the static and dynamic contact angles for water on these surfaces. The contact angles and the rolling angles on the silicon surfaces were measured through an optical contact angle meter. Wettability studies revealed the films exhibited a superhydrophobic behaviour with a higher contact angle and lower rolling angle-a water droplet moved easily on the surface.

Author(s):  
Jordan P. Mizerak ◽  
Van P. Carey

The dynamic behavior of impinging water droplets is studied in the context of varying surface morphologies on smooth and microstructured superhydrophilic surfaces. The goal of this study is to evaluate the capability of contact angle wall adhesion models to accurately produce spreading phenomena seen on a variety of surface types. We analyze macroscale droplet behavior, specifically spreading extent and impinging regime, in situations of varying microscale wetting character and surface morphology. Axisymmetric, volume of fluid (VOF) simulations with static contact angle wall adhesion are conducted in ANSYS Fluent. Simulations are performed on water for low Weber numbers (We<20) on surfaces with features of length scale 5–10μm. Advanced microstructured surfaces consisting of unique wetting characteristics and lengths on each face are also tested. Results show that while the contact angle wall adhesion model shows fair agreement for conventional surfaces, the model underestimates spreading by over 60% for surfaces exhibiting estimated contact angles below approximately 0.5°. Microstructured surfaces adapt the wetting behavior of smooth surfaces with higher effective contact angles based on contact line pinning on morphology features. The propensity of the model to produce Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter states is linked to the spreading radius, introducing an interdependency of microscale wetting and macroscale spreading behavior. Conclusions describing the impact of results on evaporative cooling are also discussed.


Fluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
Nicola Suzzi ◽  
Giulio Croce

The bifurcation analysis of a film falling down an hybrid surface is conducted via the numerical solution of the governing lubrication equation. Instability phenomena, that lead to film breakage and growth of fingers, are induced by multiple contamination spots. Contact angles up to 75∘ are investigated due to the full implementation of the free surface curvature, which replaces the small slope approximation, accurate for film slope lower than 30∘. The dynamic contact angle is first verified with the Hoffman–Voinov–Tanner law in case of a stable film down an inclined plate with uniform surface wettability. Then, contamination spots, characterized by an increased value of the static contact angle, are considered in order to induce film instability and several parametric computations are run, with different film patterns observed. The effects of the flow characteristics and of the hybrid pattern geometry are investigated and the corresponding bifurcation diagram with the number of observed rivulets is built. The long term evolution of induced film instabilities shows a complex behavior: different flow regimes can be observed at the same flow characteristics under slightly different hybrid configurations. This suggest the possibility of controlling the rivulet/film transition via a proper design of the surfaces, thus opening the way for relevant practical application.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert P. Jennissen

ABSTRACTImaginary contact angles underlying hyperhydrophilicity and the Inverse Lotus Effect introduce a fundamental new development in the area of contact angles and wettability. Just as the Lotus Effect expanded hydrophobicity beyond the maximal contact angle of 119° on a smooth surface, the Inverse Lotus Effect expands hydrophilicity beyond the minimal contact angle of 0° on a smooth surface. Imaginary dynamic contact angles thus offer an exciting enhancement in tools and methodology for measuring the wettability on rough, highly hydrophilic surfaces. Contrary to current thinking, full or perfect wetting of rough surfaces is only little understood and cannot be predicted by classical equations. Therefore also the exact physical basis of imaginary dynamic contact angles remains to be elucidated. In this short treatise some aspects of the new field will be treated with examples derived from rough titanium surfaces employed in the medical field.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 2491-2499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baojia Li ◽  
Ming Zhou ◽  
Run Yuan ◽  
Lan Cai

Based on the classical wetting theories, two theoretically predicted formulas of the apparent contact angles on square-pillar-array microstructured surfaces for Wenzel mode and Cassie mode have been derived, respectively. The theories of superhydrophobic stability on microstructured surfaces have been summarized. Four square-pillar-array samples were fabricated on titanium substrates by using the femtosecond laser micromachining technology, and wettability was analyzed by both experimental and analytical methods. The results showed that the titanium-based surfaces are superhydrophobic. The maximal apparent contact angle is up to 156.9°, while the corresponding sliding angle is 4.7°. Testing of the superhydrophobic stability of the surfaces showed that the maximal deviation of the apparent contact angles is only 0.6°. Analyses indicate that the stable superhydrophobicity of the supplied titanium-based surfaces is within a certain range and not perfect. To improve that, a practical controllable method is proposed herein for the design of a stable superhydrophobic surface.


Author(s):  
Eiji Ishii ◽  
Taisuke Sugii

Predicting the spreading behavior of droplets on a wall is important for designing micro/nano devices used for reagent dispensation in micro-electro-mechanical systems, printing processes of ink-jet printers, and condensation of droplets on a wall during spray forming in atomizers. Particle methods are useful for simulating the behavior of many droplets generated by micro/nano devices in practical computational time; the motion of each droplet is simulated using a group of particles, and no particles are assigned in the gas region if interactions between the droplets and gas are weak. Furthermore, liquid-gas interfaces obtained from the particle method remain sharp by using the Lagrangian description. However, conventional surface tension models used in the particle methods are used for predicting the static contact angle at a three-phase interface, not for predicting the dynamic contact angle. The dynamic contact angle defines the shape of a spreading droplet on a wall. We previously developed a surface tension model using inter-particle force in the particle method; the static contact angle of droplets on the wall was verified at various contact angles, and the heights of droplets agreed well with those obtained theoretically. In this study, we applied our surface tension model to the simulation of a spreading droplet on a wall. The simulated dynamic contact angles for some Weber numbers were compared with those measured by Šikalo et al, and they agreed well. Our surface tension model was useful for simulating droplet motion under static and dynamic conditions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ten It Wong ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Fuke Wang ◽  
Sau Leng Sin ◽  
Cheng Gen Quan ◽  
...  

In contact angle measurements, direct identification of the contact angles from images taken from a goniometer suffers from errors caused by optical scatterings. Contact angles can be more accurately identified by the height and width of the droplet. Spherical dome is a simple model used to correlate the contact angles to the droplet shape; however, it features intrinsic errors caused by gravity-induced shape deformation. This paper demonstrates a simple method of obtaining an empirical formula, determined from experiments, to correct the gravity-induced error in the spherical dome model for contact angle calculations. A series of contact angles, heights, and surface contact widths are simultaneously collected for a large amount of samples, and the contact angles are also calculated using the spherical dome model. The experimental data are compared with those obtained from the spherical dome model to acquire an empirical formula for contact angles. Compared with the spherical dome model, the empirical formula can reduce the average errors of the contact angle from –16.3 % to 0.18 %. Furthermore, the same method can be used to correct the gravity errors in the spherical dome for the volume (calculated by height and width), height (calculated by contact angle and volume), and width (calculated by contact angle and volume), and the spherical dome errors can be reduced from –20.9 %, 24.6 %, and –4.8 % to 2 %, –0.13 %, and –0.6 %, respectively. Our method is generic and applicable for all kinds of solvent and substrates, and the derived empirical formulae can be directly used for water droplets on any substrate.


Author(s):  
Ming-Fang Wang ◽  
Nithin Nraghuna ◽  
Babak Ziaie

In this paper, we report on an inexpensive non-lithographic approach to create superhydrophobic silicon surfaces using porous silicon technology. We have used a two-step method to create an unstable hierarchical (micro-nano) superhydrophobic silicon surface. Our technique is a unique combination of a high current density (170mA/cm2) porous silicon formation step followed by a wet etching step in BOE/HNO3. Porous silicon layers, of both n- and p-type wafers were used in these experiments. The contact and rolling angles were measured for: 1) regular porous silicon, 2) porous silicon with hierarchical fractal-shape structure, and 3) hierarchical fractal-shape porous silicon after the wet etching step. For both n- and p-type wafers, the contact angles of regular porous silicon (nonhierarchical) were around 120° with a rolling angle of 90°. With hierarchical structure, the contact angle increased to 135° and after addition wet etching, the contact angle approached 160° (superhydrophobic). Besides, after wet etching step the surface became extremely unstable showing a very low rolling angle (&lt;1°).


1977 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rulon E Johnson ◽  
Robert H Dettre ◽  
Dale A Brandreth

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