Study of the Wetting Characteristics of Patterned Silicon Micro Conical Structure

Controlling the wetting property of the surface present a major challenge but at the same time, it open the possibility of designing surfaces customized for particular applications. For example, allowing self-cleaning surfaces when the surface presents a hydrophobic state with high static contact angle and low contact angle hysteresis. In this work, the effect on the wetting property of patterned surfaces with Si microcones has been studied. It was observed that the height of the structure and center-to-center distance are controlling the wetting property of the surface. Three different wetting states (Cassie-Baxter state, the Wenzel state, and the sunny-side-up state) and the corresponding transition between the states were observed. A sharp Cassie-Wenzel transition was triggered with decreasing the area fraction of the surface.