Superhydrophobic Surface by Replication of Laser Micromachined Pattern in Epoxy/Alumina Nanoparticle Composite
Figure 1
Schematic illustration of hierarchical surface patterning and hydrophobization. The hexagonal microcavity arrangement in the aluminum master is shown in (a), where D = 50 μm, L = 10 μm, 30 μm, and 100 μm for Al1, Al2, and Al3 masters, respectively. Microcavity depth H = 20 μm, as illustrated in the pattern cross-section (b). The consecutive replication steps consist of the master surface hydrophobization (c), casting of PDMS onto the master (d) to form a negative microstructure replica (e), hydrophobization of the PDMS replica surface (f), casting of the epoxy/Al2O3 nanoparticle (ALNP) composite onto the PDMS replica (g) to obtain an epoxy nanocomposite positive replica of the master microstructure (h). The zoomed in sections illustrate the ALNP agglomerate, exposed by RF air plasma etching in (i) and surface modification with hydrolyzed PFTDTES in (j).
