Wetting behavior of solid hydrogen films

We have studied the dewetting of quench-condensed solid hydrogen films on bare and Ne plated Ag substrates. Information about the morphology of the films during the dewetting process is obtained from measurements of photoelectron tunneling through the films and complementary surface plasmon resonance data. Plating the Ag substrate with Ne films of various thickness allows to tune the strength of the van der Waals interaction with the hydrogen and thus to change the H-2 films from a state of incomplete to complete wetting.