Droplet contact angle behavior on a hybrid surface with hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties

A hybrid surface consisting of an array of hydrophobic and hydrophilic sites was designed and fabricated in an effort to better understand the effects of microscale surface features and chemistry on wettability. A model based on energy minimization was developed to design and predict the wettability of hybrid surfaces. Measured advancing, receding, and equilibrium contact angles fit the proposed model well. Experiments show that a higher degree of hydrophobicity results in higher contact angles and that contact angle hysteresis increases with decreasing micropillar spacing (b/a). Moreover, measured roll-off angle as an indicator of droplet shedding, decreases with b/a. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4752470]