Mesoscopic analysis of Gibbs' criterion for sessile nanodroplets on trapezoidal substrates
arXiv:1111.5437 · doi:10.1063/1.3682775
Abstract
By taking into account precursor films accompanying nanodroplets on trapezoidal substrates we show that on a mesoscopic level of description one does not observe the phenomenon of liquid-gas-substrate contact line pinning at substrate edges. This phenomenon is present in a macroscopic description and leads to non-unique contact angles which can take values within a range determined by the so-called Gibbs' criterion. Upon increasing the volume of the nanodroplet the apparent contact angle evaluated within the mesoscopic approach changes continuously between two limiting values fulfilling Gibbs' criterion while the contact line moves smoothly across the edge of the trapezoidal substrate. The spatial extent of the range of positions of the contact line, corresponding to the variations of the contact angle between the values given by Gibbs' criterion, is of the order of ten fluid particle diameters.
23 pages, 27 figures
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Cited by in corpus (7)
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- Stability of thin liquid films and sessile droplets under confinement
- Geometry-induced interface pinning at completely wet walls
- The influence of van der Waals forces on droplet morphological transitions and solvation forces in nanochannels
- Wetting in a two-dimensional capped capillary. Part I: Wetting temperature and capillary prewetting