Nanostructures are commonly used for developing superhydrophobic surfaces. However, available wetting theoretical models ignore the effect of vacuum photon-modes alteration on van der Waals forces and thus on hydrophobicity. Using first-principle calculations, we show that superhydrophibicity of nanostructured surfaces is dramatically enhanced by vacuum photon-modes tuning. As a case study, wetting contact angles of a water droplet above a polyethylene nanostructured surface are obtained from the interaction potential energy calculated as function of the droplet-surface separation distance. This new approach could pave the way for the design of novel superhydrophobic coatings.
@article{arxiv.1412.6229,
title = {Quantum vacuum photon-modes and superhydrophobicity},
author = {Louis Dellieu and Olivier Deparis and Jerome Muller and Michael Sarrazin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.6229},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures, final version published in Physical Review Letters