Water in Contact with Extended Hydrophobic Surfaces: Direct Evidence of Weak Dewetting

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

X-ray reflectivity measurements reveal a significant dewetting of a large hydrophobic paraffin surface floating on water. The dewetting phenomenon extends less than 15 A into the bulk water phase and results in an integrated density deficit of about one water molecule per 25-30 A(2) of water in contact with the paraffin surface. The results are supported by molecular dynamics simulations and related to the hydrophobic effect.