Chasing the Critical Wetting Transition. An Effective Interface Potential Method

Abstract

Wettablity is one of the important characteristics defining a given surface. Here we show that the effective interface potential method of determining the wetting temperature, originally proposed by MacDowell and Müller for the surfaces exhibiting the first order wetting transition, can also be used to estimate the wetting temperature of the second order (continuous) wetting transition. Some selected other methods of determination of the wetting temperature are also discussed.