I have fabricate the 400 nm thick WO3 thin film of on silicon (100) substrate using DC sputtering method. How i can calculate the surface energy of my thin film sample. Please tell me the appropriate methods for estimating the surface energy of any thin film materials.
For dielectric thin film you can fabricate a capacitor, or use Quantox measurement (see https://www.google.com/patents/US6011404)
As A.B. pointed out, you need to make contact angle measurements if you want to calculate surface free-energy (SFE) of any surface. In order to obtain the SFE of an unknown film, you typically need a set of liquids of different polarities (e.g., water, ethanol, IPA, hexadecane, oils etc) and measure all contact angles. You can then utilize graphical techniques to extract the value of the SFE from the free-energy equation. Refer to these papers for more information:
1. D. Li and A. W. Neumann, “Contact angles on hydrophobic solid surfaces and their interpretation,” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, vol. 148, no. 1, pp. 190–200, Jan. 1992.
2. D. Y. Kwok and A. W. Neumann, “Contact angle measurement and contact angle interpretation,” Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 167–249, Sep. 1999.
The experimental setup required is a contact angle goniometer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_angle#Measuring_methods). If you don't have one, it is fairly easy to build one yourself. All you need is: several high precision syringes for holding and releasing different liquid droplets, a sample platform and adjustable vertical support for holding the syringe, a decent quality digital camera and lens with software to snap pictures and measure the contact angles of droplets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_angle
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0021979792901278
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001868698000876
From my point of view I recommend carefully measuring the advancing and reciding angle as Drelich describes. If you want the go in the details of surface tension Rosanovs , Possarts, Bromashenkos works are very interesting.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaroslaw_Drelich?_sg=SZvH6jt204wV_nm8BcQY4j2ZtCWnT0uvxx-1W3f9TVT5DUlJTPQby2XrN0eD3toFCW_q3X7RH6Ztcy5qTnCQ_72MEcIVUONccQoKljX98Rwo5GbYLLCV_g.w4cb2jn9KurzyOh1t-dJG1cqsoNv4s1rOu5mp_E8StlpzoTVFMV_QH_V4xuMfV9iY3mJpHm7rXfVVh8wJE-ohw
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Bormashenko
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anatoly_Rusanov
As Tanuj pointed out you need contact angle measurements with 2 set of liquids e.g. water and di-iodomethane as the polar and dispersive component of the surface tension for these two liquids are known. Then with that you can calculate the surface tension of the solid thin film. The theory behind this is called Owen-wendt theory. See the link:
https://www.kruss-scientific.com/services/education-theory/glossary/owens-wendt-rabel-and-kaelble-owrk-method/
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