Bio-inspired micro-nano structured surface with structural color and anisotropic wettability on Cu substrate

• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2016.03.234
• Publication Date: 2016-04-03T12:10:10Z
• Authors: Yan Liu; Shuyi Li; Shichao Niu; Xiaowen Cao; Zhiwu Han; Luquan Ren
• Keywords: Creatures; Structural Coloration; Surface Modification

Abstract Inspired by the unique creatures in the nature, the femtosecond laser technology has been usually used to fabricate the periodic microstructures due to its advantages of rapidness, simplicity, ease of large-area fabrication, and simultaneously offering dual micro/nano-scale structures simply via one-step process for a wide variety of materials. By changing the experimental conditions, multi-functional surfaces which possess superhydrophobicity and structural colors could be achieved on copper substrate. In addition, the apparent contact angle can reach 144.3° without any further modification, which also exhibits the anisotropic wettability. Moreover, it can be inferred that higher laser fluence can lead to a larger CA within a certain range. At the same time, due to the change of laser processing parameters, the obtained surfaces present different structural colors. This study may expand the applications of bio-inspired functional materials because multiple colors and hydrophobicity are both important features in the real life and industrial applications, such as display, decoration, and anti-counterfeiting technology etc.