Effects of surface defect, polycrystallinity and nanostructure of self-assembled monolayers on wetting and its interpretation

Contact angle measurement is easily performed by establishing the tangent (angle) of a liquid drop with a solid surface at the base. The attractiveness of using contact angles 6 to estimate the solid-vapor and solid-liquid interfacial tensions is due to the relative ease with which contact angles can be measured on suitably prepared solid surfaces. It is apparent in the literature that this seeming simplicity can be misleading.