Controlled switching of the wetting behavior of biomimetic surfaces with hydrogel-supported nanostructures

Original entry by Sagar Bhandari, APPHY 225 Fall 2010

Reference

Controlled switching of the wetting behavior of biomimetic surfaces with hydrogel-supported nanostructures,Alexander Sidorenko, Tom Krupenkinb and Joanna Aizenberg, J. Mater. Chem., 2008, 18, 3841-3846

Keywords

nanostructure, microstructure, wetting, biomimetic

Summary

The authors demonstrate the application of a variation of biomimetic surfaces capable of dynamic actuation in controlled reversible switching of the surface wetting behavior. The authors described a method of fabricating Si nanostructured surfaces with high-aspect-ratio features as shown in Figure 1a. When a hydrophobic coating is applied, the nanostructured surfaces demonstrate remarkable superhydrophobicity. As shown in Figure 1b, the water droplet remains in almost spherical shape when it's on the superhydrophobic surface.

Figure 1:

In this paper, the authors report on the synthesis of new designs that combine hydrogels with an array of such high-aspect ratio nanostructures.

Figure 2: