Analysis of thickness of a hydrophobic fluoropolymer film based on electrowetting.

The electrowetting of water drops on a dielectric fluoropolymer film was studied experimentally. The dependence of the contact angles of the water drops on the applied voltage has been well explained in the low-voltage limit by using the classical Young-Lippmann theory. With this theory, the thicknesses of films coated on glass substrates by using a spin-coater were obtained indirectly by fitting the contact angle data and were confirmed by using X-ray reflectometry. The two sets of results showed a good agreement. In addition, we confirmed that the contact angle saturation at high voltage were consistent with Peykov's model.