The influence of droplet size on line tension
Within the effective interfacial Hamiltonian approach we evaluate the excess line free energy associated with cylinder-shaped droplets sessile on a stripe-like chemical inhomogeneity of a planar substrate. In the case of short-range intermolecular forces the droplet morphology and the corresponding expression for the line tension - which includes the inhomogeneity finite width effects - are derived and discussed as functions of temperature and increasing width. The width-dependent contributions to the line tension change their structure at the stripe wetting temperature T_W1: for T T_W1 the decay is algebraic. In addition, a geometric construction of the corresponding contact angle is carried out and its implications are discussed.
cond-mat.stat-mech↗