Surface Roughness and Particle Adhesion

One of the important mechanisms affecting particle adhesion is the geometry of the contact between the particle and the surface. Atomic force microscopy can measure both this geometry and the particle adhesion. The positional dependence of adhesion of a point probe to a variety of rough surfaces has been measured. The Derjaguin approximation predicts that the adhesion fluctuations are proportional to the surface curvature fluctuations, if the adhesion is dominated by long range forces. Atomic force microscopy adhesion maps have directly verified this linearity.