Superhydrophobic surfaces fabricated by microstructuring of stainless steel using a femtosecond laser

• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2009.07.061
• Publication Date: 2009-07-26T07:54:49Z
• Authors: Bo Wu; Ming Zhou; Jian Li; Xia Ye; Gang Li; Lan Cai
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

Fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces induced by femtosecond laser is a research hotspot of superhydrophobic surface studies nowadays. We present a simple and easily-controlled method for fabricating stainless steel-based superhydrophobic surfaces. The method consists of microstructuring stainless steel surfaces by irradiating samples with femtosecond laser pulses and silanizing the surfaces. By low laser fluence, we fabricated typical laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) on the submicron level. The apparent contact angle (CA) on the surface is 150.3°. With laser fluence increasing, we fabricated periodic ripples and periodic cone-shaped spikes on the micron scale, both covered with LIPSS. The stainless steel-based surfaces with micro- and submicron double-scale structure have higher apparent CAs. On the surface of double-scale structure, the maximal apparent CA is 166.3° and at the same time, the sliding angle (SA) is 4.2°.