School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Nat Commun. 2013;4:2167. doi: 10.1038/ncomms3176.
A transparent coating that repels a wide variety of liquids, prevents staining, is capable of self-repair and is robust towards mechanical damage can have a broad technological impact, from solar cell coatings to self-cleaning optical devices. Here we employ colloidal templating to design transparent, nanoporous surface structures. A lubricant can be firmly locked into the structures and, owing to its fluidic nature, forms a defect-free, self-healing interface that eliminates the pinning of a second liquid applied to its surface, leading to efficient liquid repellency, prevention of adsorption of liquid-borne contaminants, and reduction of ice adhesion strength. We further show how this method can be applied to locally pattern the repellent character of the substrate, thus opening opportunities to spatially confine any simple or complex fluids. The coating is highly defect-tolerant due to its interconnected, honeycomb wall structure, and repellency prevails after the application of strong shear forces and mechanical damage. The regularity of the coating allows us to understand and predict the stability or failure of repellency as a function of lubricant layer thickness and defect distribution based on a simple geometric model.
一种能排斥多种液体、防止污渍、具有自修复能力且能抵抗机械损伤的透明涂层，可能会产生广泛的技术影响，从太阳能电池涂层到自清洁光学器件。在这里，我们采用胶体模板设计了透明的纳米多孔表面结构。润滑剂可以牢固地锁定在结构中，并且由于其流体性质，形成了无缺陷、自修复的界面，消除了施加在其表面上的第二种液体的钉扎，从而实现了高效的液体排斥、防止液体污染物的吸附以及降低冰附着强度。我们进一步展示了如何将这种方法应用于局部图案化基底的疏水性，从而为空间限制任何简单或复杂的流体提供了机会。由于其互连的蜂窝壁结构，该涂层具有高度的抗缺陷性，并且在施加强大的剪切力和机械损伤后仍能保持疏水性。该涂层的规则性使我们能够根据一个简单的几何模型，理解和预测排斥稳定性或失效，其取决于润滑剂层厚度和缺陷分布。
