The paper reports on wetting, electrowetting (EW), and systematic contact angle hysteresis measurements after electrowetting of superhydrophobic silicon nanowire surfaces (NWs). The surfaces consist of C₄F₈-coated silicon nanowires grown on Si/SiO₂ substrate. Different surfaces modulating (i) the dielectric layer thickness and (ii) the nanotexturation were investigated in this study. It was found that the superhydrophobic NWs display different EW behaviors according to their double nanotexturation with varying droplet impalement levels. Some surfaces exhibited a total reversibility to EW with no impalement (contact angle variation of 35 ± 2° at 190 V_TRMS with deionized water), whereas other surfaces showed nonreversible behavior to EW with partial droplet impalement. A scenario is proposed to explain the unique properties of these surfaces.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Engineering
Research Group:	Fluid mechanics and thermal engineering
Research Field:	Fluid mechanics and thermal engineering not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Manufacturing
Objective Group:	Instrumentation
Objective Field:	Scientific instruments
UTAS Author:	Lapierre, F (Dr Florian Lapierre)
ID Code:	100002
Year Published:	2009
Web of Science® Times Cited:	51
Deposited By:	Austn Centre for Research in Separation Science
Deposited On:	2015-04-22
Last Modified:	2015-08-19
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