Size and temperature effects on wetting in supercooled vacuum condensates

Abstract

The measured data of studying the temperature dependence of wetting angles of amorphous carbon films by island tin and indium condensates are presented in the broad temperature range (350–850 K) encompassing the range of the supercooled state of metals together with the size dependence of wetting in the Sn/C at 400 K. Considerable decrease of the wetting angle is observed with the liquid metal supercooling increasing, the fact being probably associated with the decrease of the interphase energy of the drop–substrate boundary. The size effect is observed for the supercooled tin microdrops (ΔT=105 K) with the radii R<30 nm manifesting itself in the improvement of wetting with the decrease of the microdrop size.