Physics of hydrophobic cavities

Vassili Yaminsky, Satomi Ohnishi

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    28 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    It has been long believed that modern physics fails in explaining the forces measured between hydrophobic surfaces. We show that the dispersion attraction and cavitation between two uncharged strongly hydrophobic surfaces agree with the classical capillarity and Lifshitz theories. The fluorinated macroscopic glass spheres, with contact angles over 90°, show several times weaker van der Waals attraction across water compared to measurements in air. The aqueous film, stable down to distances shorter than 3 nm, breaks on contact. A bridging vacuum cavity rapidly fills with diffusing air. The long-range capillary force is affected by contact angle hysteresis and pressure regulation effects. The dispersion attraction and cavitation are similar in air-supersaturated and undersaturated water; the stability of the bubbles forming on breaking the meniscus critically depends on the allocation of the system with respect to the coexistence boundary.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1970-1976
    Number of pages7
    JournalLangmuir
    Volume19
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 18 Mar 2003

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