  The influence of the external pressure and surface energy on the wetting
transition at nanotextured interfaces is studied using molecular dynamics and
continuum simulations. The surface roughness of the composite interface is
introduced via an array of spherical nanoparticles with controlled wettability.
We find that in the absence of an external pressure, the liquid interface is
flat and its location relative to the solid substrate is determined by the
particle size and the local contact angle. With increasing pressure on the
liquid film, the interface becomes more curved and the three-phase contact line
is displaced along the spherical surface but remains stable due to re-entrant
geometry. It is demonstrated that the results of molecular dynamics simulations
for the critical pressure of the Cassie-Baxter wetting state agree well with
the estimate of the critical pressure obtained by numerical minimization of the
interfacial energy.
