Article
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Statistical Mechanics of Electrowetting
Version 1
: Received: 1 February 2024 / Approved: 2 February 2024 / Online: 2 February 2024 (06:42:34 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Louge, M.Y.; Wang, Y. Statistical Mechanics of Electrowetting. Entropy 2024, 26, 276. Louge, M.Y.; Wang, Y. Statistical Mechanics of Electrowetting. Entropy 2024, 26, 276.
Abstract
We derive an ab initio equilibrium statistical mechanics of the gas-liquid-solid contact angle on planar periodic, monodisperse, textured surfaces subject to electrowetting. To that end, we extend an earlier theory that predicts how advance or recession of the contact line amount to distinct first-order phase transitions of the filling state in the ensemble of nearby surface cavities. Upon calculating the individual capacitance of a cavity subject to the influence of its near neighbors, we show how hysteresis, which is manifested by different advancing and receding contact angles, is affected by electrowetting. The analysis reveals nine distinct regimes characterizing contact angle behavior, three of which arise only when a voltage is applied to the conductive liquid drop. As the square voltage is progressively increased, the theory elucidates how the drop occasionally undergoes regime transitions triggering jumps in the contact angle, possibly changing its hysteresis, or saturating it at a value weakly dependent on further voltage growth. To illustrate these phenomena and validate the theory, we confront its predictions with four data sets. A benefit of the theory is to forsake trial-and-error when designing textured surfaces with specific contact angle behavior.
Keywords
contact angle; capillarity; statistical mechanics; hysteresis; electrowetting
Subject
Physical Sciences, Fluids and Plasmas Physics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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