%0 journal article
%@ 0021-9797
%A Díaz, D., Nickel, O., Moraga, N., Catalán, R.E., Retamal, M.J., Zelada, H., Cisternas, M., Meißner, R., Huber, P., Corrales, T.P., Volkmann, U.G.

%D 2022
%J Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

%P 57-66 
%R doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.121
%T How water wets and self-hydrophilizes nanopatterns of physisorbed hydrocarbons
%U https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.121
 
%X These patterns exhibit a good water wettability even though the carpets are initially prepared with a high coverage of hydrophobic alkane molecules. Using in-liquid atomic force microscopy, along with molecular dynamics simulations, we trace this to a rearrangement of the alkane layers upon contact with water. This restructuring is correlated to the morphology of the C32 coatings, i.e. their fractal dimension. Water molecules displace to a large extent the first adsorbed alkane monolayer and thereby reduce the hydrophobic C32 surface coverage. Thus, our experiments evidence that water molecules can very effectively hydrophilize initially hydrophobic surfaces that consist of weakly bound hydrocarbon carpets.