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Comments on “An Essay on Contact Angle Measurements”: Determination of Surface Roughness and Modeling of the Wetting Behavior
Author(s) -
Terriza Antonia,
Alvarez Rafael,
Yubero Francisco,
Borras Ana,
GonzálezElipe Agustin R.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
plasma processes and polymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.644
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1612-8869
pISSN - 1612-8850
DOI - 10.1002/ppap.201100081
Subject(s) - wetting , contact angle , surface finish , surface roughness , materials science , atomic force microscopy , saturation (graph theory) , wetting transition , composite material , surface (topology) , polymer , optics , mechanics , nanotechnology , geometry , physics , mathematics , combinatorics
This commentary addresses the problem of determining surface roughness values and their use to assess the wetting behavior of surfaces. For very rough surfaces it is shown that depending on the observation scale by atomic force microscopy (AFM) quite different RMS roughness values can be obtained and that only the values taken at saturation can be used for properly describing the roughness of the examined materials. This effect has clear consequences when trying to apply wetting models to account for the influence of roughness on contact angles. These ideas are discussed with examples taken from rough polymer surfaces subjected to plasma etching.