The wetting properties of surfaces, including the adhesion and stiction (static friction) of liquid drops, are critical for processing materials and post-production problems such as fouling. With the emergence of 2D materials such as graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, the interaction of liquids with one-atom-thick matter and its support poses new challenges in our understanding of wetting.

In my talk, I shall present an overview of recent research in this area, ranging from wetting transparency and translucency of graphene [1,2] to electrochemically switchable wetting and adhesion of hexagonal boron nitride [3].

[1] J. Rafiee, X. Mi, H. Gullapalli, A.V. Thomas, F. Yavari, Y.F. Shi, P.M. Ajayan, N.A. Koratkar, Nat. Mater. 11 (2012) 217–222.
[2] C.J. Shih, M.S. Strano, D. Blankschtein, Nat. Mater. 11 (2013) 866–869.
[3] S.F.L. Mertens, A. Hemmi, S. Muff, O. Gröning, S. De Feyter, J. Osterwalder, T. Greber, Nature 534 (2016) 676–679.

Figure: Electrochemical hydrogen intercalation flattens a monolayer of hexagonal boron nitride on Rh(111) and changes advancing (1) and receding (2) contact angles