  The influence of material characteristics - i.e., type or surface texture -
to wetting properties is nowadays increased by the implementation of ultrafast
lasers for nanostructuring. In this account, we exposed multilayer thin metal
film samples of different materials to a femtosecond laser beam at a 1030 nm
wavelength. The interaction generated high-quality laser-induced periodic
surface structures (LIPSS) of spatial periods between 740 and 790 nm and with
maximal average corrugation height below 100 nm. The contact angle (CA) values
of the water droplets on the surface were estimated and the values between
unmodified and modified samples were compared. Even though the laser
interaction changed both the surface morphology and the chemical composition,
the wetting properties were predominantly influenced by the small change in
morphology causing the increase in the contact angle of ~80%, which could not
be explained classically. The influence of both surface corrugation and
chemical composition to the wetting properties has been thoroughly
investigated, discussed and explained. The presented results clearly confirm
that femtosecond patterning can be used to mold wetting properties.
