The Nucleation and Wetting Behavior at Hydrophilic, Polyacrylate Nanostructures Fabricated via Direct Laser Writing

Abstract

In the area of controlled liquid movement, surfaces providing a pronounced wetting behavior are of particularly interest [1].A look for inspiration into nature reveals a broad variety of water repellent and water attracting surfaces [2].Prominent representatives are the super-hydrophobic eyes of moths [3] and the water pinning petals of roses [4].While the former were intensively investigated over the last decades due to an obvious application in anti-fogging coatings, the interest in the latter rose only recently mainly driven by its significance for microfluidics and structural genomics [5][6][7].Here, the pinning behavior of surfaces was macroscopically characterized by using static or dynamic contact angle experiments.However, no detailed nucleation investigations on micro-scale have been performed so far.In this work we want to focus exactly on this missing component.