The silicon surface of commercial atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes loses its hydrophilicity by adsorption of airborne and package-released hydrophobic organic contaminants. Cleaning of the probes by acid piranha solution or discharge plasma removes the contaminants and renders very hydrophilic probe surfaces. Timeof-flight secondary-ion mass spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy investigations showed that the native silicon oxide

Water bridges formed through capillary condensation at nanoscale contacts first stretch and then break during contact rupture. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) pull-off experiments performed in air with hydrophilic tips and samples show that stretched nanoscopic water bridges are in mechanical equilibrium with the external pull-off force acting at the contact but not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the water vapor in air. The experimental findings

The present work proposes an extension of Oliver-Pharr analysis (J. Mater. Res. 7, 1564, 1992) of unloading force-displacement data obtained in nanoscale indentation experiments to account for contact adhesion. The loading force is considered a sum of the contact elastic and adhesion forces. During the unloading, both forces suffer variations. For conical geometry, the unloading force-displacement curve is described by a sum of a quadratic term
accounting

A single nanoasperity contact in ambient air is usually wetted by capillary condensation of water vapor and is surrounded by a water meniscus. This phenomenon strongly affects the contact friction, not only by the effect of meniscus loading force (superficial tension and capillary forces), but also by a friction force that accounts for the energy loss in the meniscus movement along with the sliding contact. Occurrence of the water-meniscus-generated

Abstract The UV-light-induced hydrophilicity of amorphous titanium dioxide thin films obtained by radio frequency magnetron sputtering deposition was studied in relation with film thickness. The effect of UV light irradiation on the film hydrophilicity was fast, strong and did not depend on substrate or thickness for films thicker than a threshold value of about 12 nm, while for thinner films it was weak and dependent on substrate or thickness. The