Effects of Surface Microtopography on Wettability of Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Film: Superhydrophobicity

 Recent advances in micro- and nanotechnology have led to possible design of functional micro/nanostructured surfaces with micro/nanotopography features that can exhibit low adhesion properties. An important example of such structures is superhydrophobic surface, which is extremely water repellent. In the present work, the effects of surface microtopography on the wetting of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) rubber film with the goal of producing superhydrophobic surface are investigated.

Micropillar arrays inspired by biological structures found in nature are produced on PDMS surface using a soft microlithography technique with different pitch/width ratios. To this end, the masters are fabricated using conventional microfabrication techniques and photolithography. Master designs tested are inverted pillar shape fabricated by anisotropic etching of silicon (reactive-ion etching, DRIE), a high aspect ratio master and a low aspect ratio photoresist master.

Our fabricated pillars have nano-scale ripples that arise from the series of alternating, independent silicon etching and sidewall passivation steps used in the DRIE process. The elastomeric stamps are negative replicas of the masters and they are fabricated by PDMS. The stamps have a regular array of protruding features, in order to make a pattern transfer to the target substrate during m-contact printing. Several pitch/width ratios are configured to optimize the relationship between surface topography and wetting behavior of PDMS film using static water contact angle measurements. We have correlated these structures with PDMS rubber hydrophobicity and have also characterized the transition from the composite (Cassie-Baxter) to wetted (Wenzel) states for different types of surface structures. The surface topography-dependent contact angle of water underwent a transition from Cassie-Baxter to Wenzel states at pitch size ~60 mm.