The influence on surface free energy of PVD-coatings

Surface free energy is a characteristic factor which affects the surface properties and interfacial interactions such as adsorption, wetting and adhesion. Surface free energy is thus of interest in the field of adhesive technologies, biomedical applications, cleaning procedures or for the wettability of tribological systems. One method of determining the polar and dispersive terms of the free surface energies of solids is based on measurements of the contact angles of pure liquids on solid surfaces. This paper describes the use of dynamic contact angle analysis for the evaluation of surface tension.