Wetting Patterns of Liquid-Repellent Femtosecond Laser Textured Aluminum Surfaces

Although liquid-repellent surfaces are in demand in many applications, their use is limited by the Cassie state’s sustainability to environmental factors, such as the repellency of liquids with a surface tension lower than that of water. This phenomenon remains not fully understood, despite a well-developed theory. In the current work, wetting of femtosecond laser-textured aluminum surfaces for probe liquids with a surface tension of 72.8–21.2 mN/m was considered. The resulting patterns were an array of pillars at the micro level and fractal-like structures at the nano level. These structured surfaces were treated with alkoxysilanes and oleic acid. All textured samples exhibited a Cassie state with water, and contact angles greater than 150° were achieved with silane-treated surfaces. A decrease in the surface tension of the probe liquid led to а transition to the Wetzel state at 44–46 mN/m for alkoxysilanes and at 52 mN/m for oleic acid. A typical shape of the textured surface wetting curve is proposed. It was shown that the determined values of the surface tension of the Cassie-Wenzel transition were 10–15 mN/m lower than those predicted by the Cassie equations.