Structured Surfaces and Morphological Wetting Transitions

Recent theoretical and experimental studies have shown that structured surfaces, which contain patterns of lyophilic surface domains, lead to morphological wetting transitions at which the wetting layer changes its shape in a characteristic and typically abrupt manner. These transitions have been determined for several specific surface domain patterns consisting of circular, striped, or ring-shaped domains, as well as for slit pores and slabs bounded by striped surfaces. Such transitions are predicted to be rather generic and to occur for any type of structured surface.