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Any piece of matter is bounded by surfaces or
interfaces. This
is obvious on the macroscopic scale but applies equally well on the micrometer
and nanometer scale and plays an important role in
micro- and nanofluidics.
Fluid interfaces are particularly interesting since they can easily adapt their shape to
external forces and constraints. If a small liquid droplet is placed onto a rigid substrate, for example,
the droplet can attain a variety of wetting morphologies depending on the
chemical composition and/or surface topography of the underlying substrate. As
one varies a control parameter such as the droplet volume, the droplets undergo
morphological wetting transitions
[1]
as first observed for
water channels on striped substrate surfaces
[2].
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Our initial work on interfacial phenomena addressed the critical behavior associated with
partial-to-complete wetting transitions, a classical subject, which involves the following aspects:
- More recent work on interfacial phenomena is related to:
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