Wetting phenomena in nature and in artefact

Wetting phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and in our manufactured technological environment. Every instance of contact between substances composed of molecules or larger artificial particles presents an arena in which basic intermolecular and emergent surface forces determine the overall shape and cohesion of the composite material. The consequences and applications of wetting range from keeping fabric impenetrable for rain to capillarity-driven plant survival in a desert. From a fundamental point of view the entire physical and chemical phenomenology around phase transitions and critical phenomena can be applied to surfaces and interfaces prone to wetting. Density-functional theories and confocal microscopy experimental techniques have probed the wetting behavior of molecular liquids, complex fluids such as colloid-polymer mixtures, and recently active matter and biological tissue, on solid substrates. It is our purpose in this project to arrive at a more complete theoretical understanding of the physical laws governing wetting behavior in order to explain and predict with greater accuracy and greater confidence than before, the wondrous experiments in this domain. It is our goal in this project to contribute to widening the horizon of applicability of wetting phenomena in tackling the problems that our modern societies are being challenged by.