Calculation of effective slip on rough chemically heterogeneous surfaces using a homogenization approach

We present an expression for the effective slip length of a nanoscale rough chemically heterogeneous surface. A heterogeneous surface may be regarded as having an effective slip length generated by extrapolating the uniform velocity profile found in the far field. We consider two-dimensional steady-state Stokes flow over a surface that has periodic roughness and an intrinsic slip length varying over the same period. Using weak convergence methods for partial differential equations, we derive an expression for the effective slip length in terms of the intrinsic slip length and contact area of the surface. The result predicts that roughness causes a significant reduction in effective slip and that slip effects are dominated by the minimum intrinsic slip length of the system.