Observation of Capillary Waves on Liquid Thin Films from Mesoscopic to Atomic Length Scales

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Abstract
The surfaces of liquid thin perfluorohexane, cyclohexane, decane, and ethanol films adsorbed on silicon wafers have been investigated by means of x-ray reflectivity, diffuse scattering, and grazing incidence diffraction. The measurements prove that the surface structure of the wetting films can be described by a universal height-height correlation function derived from a capillary wave model with the surface tension and particular cutoffs as parameters. The data favor a reduced capillary wave surface tension as predicted by exact theories, over an enhanced capillary wave surface tension, as suggested by simple mode-coupling models.

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