Wetting on structured substrates

Abstract

Chemically patterned surfaces are of significant interest in the context of microfluidic applications, and miniaturization of such devices aims at generating structures on the nano-scale. Whereas on the micron scale purely macroscopic descriptions of liquid flow are valid, on the nanometre scale long-ranged inter-molecular interactions, thermal fluctuations such as capillary waves, and finally the molecular structure of the liquid become important. We discuss the most important conceptual differences between flow on chemically patterned substrates on the micron scale and on the nanometre scale, and formulate four design issues for nanofluidics related to channel width, channel separation, and channel bending radius. As a specific example of nano-scale transport we present a microscopic model for the dynamics of spreading of monolayers on homogeneous substrates. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of this model on a homogeneous substrate reveal a complex spatio-temporal structure of the extracted monolayer, which includes the emergence of interfaces and of scaling properties of density profiles. These features are discussed and rationalized within the corresponding continuum limit derived from the microscopic dynamics. The corresponding spreading behaviour on a patterned substrate is briefly addressed. © 2005 IOP Publishing Ltd.