Wettability of partially suspended graphene

Thierry Ondarçuhu (1) , Vincent Thomas (1) , Marc Nuñez (1) , Erik Dujardin (1) , Atikur Rahman (2) , Charles T. Black (2) , Antonio Checco (3)

1 CEMES-GNS - Groupe NanoSciences
2 Center for Functional Nanomaterials
3 BNL - Brookhaven National Laboratory [Upton, NY]

The dependence of the wettability of graphene on the nature of the underlying substrate remains only partially understood. Here, we systematically investigate the role of liquid-substrate interactions on the wettability of graphene by varying the area fraction of suspended graphene from 0 to 95% by means of nanotextured substrates. We find that completely suspended graphene exhibits the highest water contact angle (85° ± 5°) compared to partially suspended or supported graphene, regardless of the hydrophobicity (hydrophilicity) of the substrate. Further, 80% of the long-range water-substrate interactions are screened by the graphene monolayer, the wettability of which is primarily determined by short-range graphene-liquid interactions. By its well-defined chemical and geometrical properties, supported graphene therefore provides a model system to elucidate the relative contribution of short and long range interactions to the macroscopic contact angle.

Mots clés: Wetting; Graphene; Nanotextured substrates; Van der Waals interaction; Nanoscience

Domaines: Matériaux

Thierry Ondarçuhu, Vincent Thomas, Marc Nuñez, Erik Dujardin, Atikur Rahman, et al.. Wettability of partially suspended graphene. Scientific Reports, 2016, 6, pp.24237. ⟨10.1038/srep24237⟩. ⟨hal-01712012⟩