These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Contact angle saturation in electrowetting.
    Author: Quinn A, Sedev R, Ralston J.
    Journal: J Phys Chem B; 2005 Apr 07; 109(13):6268-75. PubMed ID: 16851696.
    Abstract:
    Electrowetting is the phenomenon of contact angle decrease under the influence of an external voltage applied across the solid/liquid interface. Electrowetting offers an interesting possibility to enhance the wettability of hydrophobic materials without altering the chemical composition of the system and thus could be incorporated in various microfluidic devices. Electrowetting is fundamentally an electrocapillary effect occurring on an insulated solid electrode (hence the change of the solid/liquid interfacial tension with voltage follows Lippmann's equation). A limiting contact angle value larger than zero is achieved even at very large external voltages. Saturation precludes full wetting of the substrate and restricts the magnitude of the capillary force variation. Contact angle saturation has been given various interpretations (e.g., charge trapping, air ionization) but appears to reflect a natural thermodynamic limit rather than being simply a defective property. The limiting value of the contact angle is given by the Young equation when the value of the solid/liquid interfacial tension reaches zero. The model is in excellent agreement with our own results and often gives an adequate description of published data. It also suggests that the saturation limit is determined by the material properties of the system and electrowetting at voltages exceeding this threshold is essentially a nonequilibrium process.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]