Fabrication of tunable superhydrophobic surfaces

Abstract

Inspired by the water-repellent behavior of the micro- and nano-structured plant surfaces, superhydrophobic materials, with a water contact larger than 150 degree, have received a lot of research attentions recently. It has been suggested that contamination, oxidation and current conduction can be inhibited on such superhydrophobic surfaces, and the flow resistance in the microfluidic channels can also be reduced using super water-repellent materials. In order to prepare superhydrophobic materials, we have developed two simple approaches for fabricating tunable superhydrophobic surfaces using nanosphere lithography and plasma etching. In the first case, the polystyrene nanospheres were employed to create well-ordered rough surfaces covered by gold and alkylthiols. Using oxygen plasma treatment, the topmost surface area can be modified systematically, as the result the water contact angle on such surfaces can be tuned from 132 to 170 degree. The water contact angles measured on these surfaces can be modeled by the Cassie’s formulation without any adjustable parameter. In the second approach, thin films of Teflon were spin-coated on the substrate surfaces and treated by oxygen plasma. Superhydrophobic surfaces with water contact angle up to 170 degree were obtained by this approach. If the ITO glasses were used as the substrates, the hydrophobicity of the surface can be tuned by applying DC voltage. Water contact angle can be adjusted from 158 degree to 38 degree.