The wetting behavior of homogeneous systems is now well understood at the macroscopic scale. However, this understanding offers little predictive power regarding wettability when mesoscopic chemical and morphological heterogeneities come into play. The fundamental interest in the effect of heterogeneity on wettability is derived from its high technological relevance in several industries, including ...

Non-monotonic behavior has been observed in the optoelectronic properties of ZnO thin films as doped with Hf (HZO). Here we propose that two competing mechanisms are responsible for such behaviour. Specifically, we propose that provided two crystal orientations dominate film growth, only one of them might be responsible for direct Hf substitution. Nonmonotonic behaviour is expected at once by ...

We demonstrate how to get Hamaker coefficients with an amplitude-modulation AFM operated in standard tapping mode. The Hamaker coefficient is a physical parameter that provides chemical information about the surface of samples. It is based or emerges from van der Waals forces. We use a Cypher scanning probe microscope from Asylum Research to demonstrate the method. The method is based on the research ...

The synthesis of TiO2 thin films by the chemical spray pyrolysis method at different titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) to acetylacetone (AcacH) ratios has been shown to lead to the highest photodegradation at 1 (TTIP):8 (AcacH). These films hold promise in the field of indoor pollution treatment. Carbon incorporation into the surface and into the TiO2 lattice could be responsible for the observed ...

We show that it is possible to submit the data obtained from physical phenomena as complex as the tip-surface interaction in atomic force microscopy to a specific question of interest and obtain the answer irrespective of the complexity or unknown factors underlying the phenomena. We showcase the power of the method by asking “how many hours has this graphite surface been exposed to ambient conditions?” ...

From the invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1986, tremendous efforts have been put into developing this tool. The AFM has long been considered as one of the top choices to probe the nanoscale world with the ability to achieve nanoscale resolution imaging of surfaces under different environments. Advances in instrumentation combined with the exploitation of sophisticated data analysis ...

We present here an integrated study of the photoelectrochemical and hydrophilic properties of sputtered TiO₂ thin films, enhanced by means of nitrogen (N) and copper (Cu) doping. We investigated the effect that doping has on both photoelectrochemical efficiency and surface properties by employing a variety of techniques spanning from impedance electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to ...

The divergence in physical properties of surfaces exposed to airborne contaminants in the atmosphere has been widely investigated in recent years, but agreement regarding the role that airborne hydrocarbons and water contamination have on surface property evolution remains elusive. Here we investigate the evolution of a freshly grown highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface exposed to a ...