  With molecular simulation for water and a tunable hydrophobic substrate, we
apply the instantaneous interface construction [A. P. Willard and D. Chandler,
J. Phys. Chem. B, 114, 1954 (2010)] to examine the similarity between a
water-vapor interface and a water-hydrophobic surface interface. The intrinsic
interface refers to molecular structure in terms of distances from the
instantaneous interface. We show that attractive interactions between a
hydrophobic surface and water affect capillary wave fluctuations of the
instantaneous liquid interface, but these attractive interactions have
essentially no effect on the intrinsic interface. Further, the intrinsic
interface of liquid water and a hydrophobic substrate differs little from that
of water and its vapor.The same is not true, we show, for an interface between
water and a hydrophilic substrate. In that case, strong directional
substrate-water interactions disrupt the liquid-vapor-like interfacial hydrogen
bonding network.

Soft Condensed Matter