Superhydrophobic surfaces, with a liquid contact angle $\theta$ greater than 150°, have important practical applications ranging from self-cleaning window glasses, paints, and fabrics to low-friction surfaces. Many biological surfaces, such as the lotus leaf, have a hierarchically structured surface roughness which is optimized for superhydrophobicity through natural selection. Here we present a molecular dynamics study of liquid droplets in contact with self-affine fractal surfaces. Our results indicate that the contact angle for nanodroplets depends strongly on the root-mean-square surface roughness amplitude but is nearly independent of the fractal dimension $D_f$ of the surface.

• Received 1 April 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.116103