Exploring wetting & scaling behavior of rough silicon surfaces

Here we study the roughening behavior, scaling properties and the wetting nature of the Silicon surfaces that have been irradiated with 3 keV Ar ions. These surfaces illustrate the formation of nanostructures and ripples, which evolve at higher fluences. The scaling studies have been applied to understand the evolution of the surfaces. Height- Height correlation method has been utilized to extract important scaling parameters, and the derived Hurst exponents (H) indicate these surfaces to be of self-affine type. The derived correlation lengths (xi) reflect long ranged correlations on the surface and evolution of the nanostructures. The nano-patterned surfaces show near hydrophobic behavior, which gets further enhanced with increasing irradiation.