Nepenthes Inspired Design of Self‐Repairing Omniphobic Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surface (SLIPS) by Femtosecond Laser Direct Writing

Abstract

AbstractIn this Communication, femtosecond laser is first used to successfully fabricate a slippery liquid infused porous surface (SLIPS). A kind of 3D porous network microstructure can be directly created on polyamide‐6 (PA6) substrate by a one‐step femtosecond laser direct writing method. The preparation process of SLIPS mainly includes three steps: femtosecond laser ablation, fluoroalkyl layer modification, and infusion of lubricating liquid. The porous layer and the substrate layer of this as‐prepared SLIPS are inherent one material. Such SLIPS has many advantages over the most reported SLIPS fabricated based on “deposition/coating” methods whose porous layers are foreign materials against the substrates. A broad range of liquids including water, hexadecane, lake water, ink, glycerol, coffee, milk, egg white, and egg yolk can easily slide down the 10° tilted SLIPS, revealing that the resultant SLIPS has excellent liquid‐repellent ability. Even though the SLIPS suffers from heavily physical damage, the surface can rapidly self‐repair without any additional treatment and obtain slippery property again. The developed SLIPS promises to contribute to the achievement of omniphobic materials in self‐cleaning, antifouling, biomedical devices, and fuel transport.