Size effects in wetting for highly dispersed systems

Abstract

Wetting in systems with different dispersities of the solid and liquid phases and with different types of interfacial interaction was investigated. Studied were liq-uid metal-amorphous carbon and liquid metal-solid metal film-ionic crystal sys-tems in which the drop size and the thickness of film-substrates varied in the range 3x10^5–2x10^2 nm, respectively. It was found that for systems of the metal-amorphous carbon type a reduction in particle size and in thickness of carbon films brings about a size effect during wetting as a consequence of a decrease in the surface energy of the corresponding dispersed phase. For metal-metal-ionic crystal systems, a size effect during wetting is also observed but it is mainly caused by a changed nature of the interfacial interaction in the dispersed phases. Some parameters derived from the experimental data determine the dependence of the surface energy of small particles on their size.