Liquid water can become metastable with respect to its vapor in hydrophobic confinement. The resulting dewetting transitions are often impeded by large kinetic barriers. According to macroscopic theory, such barriers arise from the free energy required to nucleate a critical vapor tube that spans the region between two hydrophobic surfaces-tubes with smaller radii collapse, whereas larger ones grow to dry the entire confined region. Using extensive molecular simulations of water between two nanoscopic hydrophobic surfaces, in conjunction with advanced sampling techniques, here we show that for intersurface separations that thermodynamically favor dewetting, the barrier to dewetting does not correspond to the formation of a (classical) critical vapor tube. Instead, it corresponds to an abrupt transition from an isolated cavity adjacent to one of the confining surfaces to a gap-spanning vapor tube that is already larger than the critical vapor tube anticipated by macroscopic theory. Correspondingly, the barrier to dewetting is also smaller than the classical expectation. We show that the peculiar nature of water density fluctuations adjacent to extended hydrophobic surfacesnamely, the enhanced likelihood of observing low-density fluctuations relative to Gaussian statistics-facilitates this nonclassical behavior. By stabilizing isolated cavities relative to vapor tubes, enhanced water density fluctuations thus stabilize novel pathways, which circumvent the classical barriers and offer diminished resistance to dewetting. Our results thus suggest a key role for fluctuations in speeding up the kinetics of numerous phenomena ranging from Cassie-Wenzel transitions on superhydrophobic surfaces, to hydrophobically driven biomolecular folding and assembly.capillary evaporation | fluctuations | kinetic barriers | assembly T he favorable interactions between two extended hydrophobic surfaces drive numerous biomolecular and colloidal assemblies (1-5), and have been the subject of several theoretical, computational, and experimental inquiries (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Examples include the association of small proteins to form multimeric protein complexes, of amphiphlic block copolymers, dendrimers, or proteins to form vesicular suprastructures, and of patchy colloidal particles into complex crystalline lattices (23-27). When two such hydrophobic surfaces approach each other, water between them becomes metastable with respect to its vapor at a critical separation, d c , that can be quite large (8,9,(28)(29)(30). For nanometer-sized surfaces at ambient conditions, d c is proportional to the characteristic size of the hydrophobic object, whereas for micron-sized and larger surfaces, d c ∼ 1 μm (29, 30). However, due to the presence of large kinetic barriers separating the metastable wet and the stable dry states, the system persists in the wet state, and a dewetting transition is triggered only at much smaller separations (∼ 1 nm) (13,22,28,30).To uncover the mechanism of dewetting, a numbe...

Hydrophobic interactions drive many important biomolecular selfassembly phenomena. However, characterizing hydrophobicity at the nanoscale has remained a challenge due to its nontrivial dependence on the chemistry and topography of biomolecular surfaces. Here we use molecular simulations coupled with enhanced sampling methods to systematically displace water molecules from the hydration shells of nanostructured solutes and calculate the free energetics of interfacial water density fluctuations, which quantify the extent of solute-water adhesion, and therefore solute hydrophobicity. In particular, we characterize the hydrophobicity of curved graphene sheets, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) with chemical patterns, and mutants of the protein hydrophobin-II. We find that water density fluctuations are enhanced near concave nonpolar surfaces compared with those near flat or convex ones, suggesting that concave surfaces are more hydrophobic. We also find that patterned SAMs and protein mutants, having the same number of nonpolar and polar sites but different geometrical arrangements, can display significantly different strengths of adhesion with water. Specifically, hydroxyl groups reduce the hydrophobicity of methyl-terminated SAMs most effectively not when they are clustered together but when they are separated by one methyl group. Hydrophobin-II mutants show that a charged amino acid reduces the hydrophobicity of a large nonpolar patch when placed at its center, rather than at its edge. Our results highlight the power of water density fluctuations-based measures to characterize the hydrophobicity of nanoscale surfaces and caution against the use of additive approximations, such as the commonly used surface area models or hydropathy scales for characterizing biomolecular hydrophobicity and the associated driving forces of assembly.nanotube | curvature | chemical pattern | hydrophilicity | graphene H ydrophobic interactions drive many important biological and colloidal self-assembly processes (1-6). During such assembly, the hydration shells of the associating solutes are disrupted, replacing hydrophobic-water contacts with hydrophobic-hydrophobic ones. Characterizing how strongly water adheres to a given solute is, therefore, directly relevant to the strength of hydrophobic interactions between solutes. Macroscopically, surface-water adhesion is quantified by measuring the water droplet contact angle on a surface. However, such characterization does not translate usefully to proteins and other nanoscale solutes. Indeed, characterizing how strongly or weakly a protein surface or a specific patch on it adheres to water (i.e., its hydrophobicity) is incredibly challenging and has necessitated the use of simplifying assumptions.To this end, simple surface area (SA) models have been used to estimate the driving force for assembly, ∆G = γ∆A, where ∆A is the nonpolar SA buried upon assembly and γ is an appropriate surface tension (7-9). However, the value of γ used in popular models is nearly an order of magnitude lower t...

Rough or textured hydrophobic surfaces are dubbed "superhydrophobic" due to their numerous desirable properties, such as water repellency and interfacial slip. Superhydrophobicity stems from an aversion of water for the hydrophobic surface texture, so that a water droplet in the superhydrophobic "Cassie state" contacts only the tips of the rough surface. However, superhydrophobicity is remarkably fragile and can break down due to the wetting of the surface texture to yield the "Wenzel state" under various conditions, such as elevated pressures or droplet impact. Moreover, due to large energetic barriers that impede the reverse transition (dewetting), this breakdown in superhydrophobicity is widely believed to be irreversible. Using molecular simulations in conjunction with enhanced sampling techniques, here we show that on surfaces with nanoscale texture, water density fluctuations can lead to a reduction in the free energetic barriers to dewetting by circumventing the classical dewetting pathways. In particular, the fluctuation-mediated dewetting pathway involves a number of transitions between distinct dewetted morphologies, with each transition lowering the resistance to dewetting. Importantly, an understanding of the mechanistic pathways to dewetting and their dependence on pressure allows us to augment the surface texture design, so that the barriers to dewetting are eliminated altogether and the Wenzel state becomes unstable at ambient conditions. Such robust surfaces, which defy classical expectations and can spontaneously recover their superhydrophobicity, could have widespread importance, from underwater operation to phase-change heat transfer applications.Cassie | Wenzel | dewetting | fluctuations | barriers S urface roughness or texture can transform hydrophobic surfaces into "superhydrophobic" surfaces and endow them with properties such as water repellency, self-cleaning, interfacial slip, and fouling resistance (1, 2). Each of these remarkable properties stems from the reluctance of water to penetrate the hydrophobic surface texture, so that a drop of water sits atop an air cushion in the socalled Cassie state, contacting only the top of the surface asperities. However, water can readily penetrate the surface texture, yielding the Wenzel state (3, 4) at elevated pressures (4, 5) or temperatures (6), upon droplet impact (7,8), as well as due to surface vibration (9), localized defects (10), or proximity to an electric field (11); superhydrophobicity is thus remarkably fragile and can break down due to the wetting of the surface texture under a wide variety of conditions. To facilitate the recovery of superhydrophobicity and to afford reversible control over surface properties, significant efforts have focused on inducing the reverse Wenzel-to-Cassie dewetting transition. However, a true Wenzel-to-Cassie transition has been elusive (12), with most reported instances making use of trapped air (11,(13)(14)(15) or generating a gas film using an external energy source (16, 17) to jump-start the dewetting...

Interactions between proteins lie at the heart of numerous biological processes and are essential for the proper functioning of the cell. Although the importance of hydrophobic residues in driving protein interactions is universally accepted, a characterization of protein hydrophobicity, which informs its interactions, has remained elusive. The challenge lies in capturing the collective response of the protein hydration waters to the nanoscale chemical and topographical protein patterns, which determine protein hydrophobicity. To address this challenge, here, we employ specialized molecular simulations wherein water molecules are systematically displaced from the protein hydration shell; by identifying protein regions that relinquish their waters more readily than others, we are then able to uncover the most hydrophobic protein patches. Surprisingly, such patches contain a large fraction of polar/charged atoms and have chemical compositions that are similar to the more hydrophilic protein patches. Importantly, we also find a striking correspondence between the most hydrophobic protein patches and regions that mediate protein interactions. Our work thus establishes a computational framework for characterizing the emergent hydrophobicity of amphiphilic solutes, such as proteins, which display nanoscale heterogeneity, and for uncovering their interaction interfaces.

The free energetics of water density fluctuations near a surface, and the rare low-density fluctuations in particular, serve as reliable indicators of surface hydrophobicity; the easier it is to displace the interfacial waters, the more hydrophobic the underlying surface. However, characterizing the free energetics of such rare fluctuations requires computationally expensive, non-Boltzmann sampling methods like umbrella sampling. This inherent computational expense associated with umbrella sampling makes it challenging to investigate the role of polarizability or electronic structure effects in influencing interfacial fluctuations. Importantly, it also limits the size of the volume, which can be used to probe interfacial fluctuations. The latter can be particularly important in characterizing the hydrophobicity of large surfaces with molecular-level heterogeneities, such as those presented by proteins. To overcome these challenges, here we present a method for the sparse sampling of water density fluctuations, which is roughly two orders of magnitude more efficient than umbrella sampling. We employ thermodynamic integration to estimate the free energy differences between biased ensembles, thereby circumventing the umbrella sampling requirement of overlap between adjacent biased distributions. Further, a judicious choice of the biasing potential allows such free energy differences * To whom correspondence should be addressed 1 arXiv:1511.01518v1 [cond-mat.stat-mech] 4 Nov 2015 to be estimated using short simulations, so that the free energetics of water density fluctuations are obtained using only a few, short simulations. Leveraging the efficiency of the method, we characterize water density fluctuations in the entire hydration shell of the protein, ubiquitin; a large volume containing an average of more than six hundred waters.