Fabrication of patterned solid surfaces with highly controllable wettability

Abstract

Precisely controlling the wettability of a solid surface is vital for a wide range of applications such as control of liquid droplet motion, water collection and the directional transport of fluids. However, fabricating a large-area solid surface with highly controllable wettability in a low-cost way is still challenging. Here we present a cost-effective method to fabricate patterned solid surfaces with highly controllable wettability by combining chemical etching technique, chemical vapor deposition technique and laser direct writing technique. We experimentally demonstrated that the contact angle of water droplets on the patterned surfaces of a porous nanofilm fabricated using the presented fabrication method can be adjusted from 94.4° to 168.2° by changing the duty ratio of the periodic pattern on the patterned surfaces. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrated that the contact angle of water droplets on the patterned surfaces is almost independent of the shape of the unit cell of the patterns. In addition, we propose an effective surface model to accurately calculate the contact angle of water droplets on patterned solid surfaces. Using the effective surface model, the wettability of a patterned solid surface can be precisely controlled by designing the duty ratio of its periodic patterns.