An Equilibrium Lattice Model of Wetting on Rough Substrates

We consider a semi-infinite 3-dimensional Ising system with a rough wall to describe the effect of the roughness r of the substrate on wetting. We show that the difference of wall free energies (r)=_AW(r)–_BW(r) of the two phases behaves like (r)r(1), where r=1 characterizes a purely flat surface, confirming at low enough temperature and small roughness the validity of Wenzel's law, cos (r)r cos (1), which relates the contact angle of a sessile droplet to the roughness of the substrate