Study of Model Superoleophobic Surfaces Fabricated with a Modified Bosch Etch Method

Abstract

A set of surfaces featuring pillars with overhanging cap structures, exhibiting superoleophobic behavior, were fabricated using a new method. While such structures have been previously reported, in contrast with previous literature this new method allows for the control of pillar cross-sectional diameter, pillar separation, and Cassie fraction independent from the pillar radius-to-height ratio. Once fabricated the contact angles of the surfaces were examined using water, ethylene glycol, and hexadecane. These surfaces were capable of maintaining a stable Cassie state with hexadecane where surfaces with similar Cassie fraction but vertical sidewalls we had examined previously collapsed into the Wenzel state. The overall behavior of the liquids conforms to prior experience with vertical sidewall structures, with the advancing contact angles tending to remain high and insensitive to changing Cassie fraction while the receding contact angles follow the trends predicted by the Cassie equation much more closely. All experimental evidence taken together, this seems to indicate that the cap structures increase the stability of the Cassie state, but at the expense of increasing drop pinning, over and above what such surface texturing already does.