Boundary slip study on hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and superhydrophobic surfaces with dynamic atomic force microscopy

Slip length has been measured using the dynamic atomic force microscopy (AFM) method. Unlike the contact AFM method, the sample surface approaches an oscillating sphere with a very low velocity in the dynamic AFM method. During this process, the amplitude and phase shift data are recorded to calculate the hydrodynamic damping coefficient, which is then used to obtain slip length. In this study, a glass sphere with a large radius was glued to the end of an AFM cantilever to measure the slip length on rough surfaces. Experimental results for hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and superhydrophobic surfaces show that the hydrodynamic damping coefficient decreases from the hydrophilic surface to the hydrophobic surface and from the hydrophobic one to the superhydrophobic one. The slip lengths obtained on the hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces are 43 and 236 nm, respectively, which indicates increasing boundary slip from the hydrophobic surface to the superhydrophobic one.