Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
Interface Materials and Chemical Engineering Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Daejeon 34114, Republic of Korea.
Nano Lett. 2021 Jul 14;21(13):5500-5507. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c00436. Epub 2021 Apr 29.
Sharks, marine creatures that swim fast and have an antifouling ability, possess dermal denticle structures of micrometer-size. Because the riblet geometries on the denticles reduce the shear stress by inducing the slip of fluid parallel to the stream-wise direction, shark skin has the distinguished features of low drag and antifouling. Although much attention has been given to low-drag surfaces inspired from shark skin, it remains an important challenge to accurately mimic denticle structures in the micrometer scale and to finely control their structural features. This paper presents a novel method to create shark skin-mimetic denticle structures for low drag by exploiting a photoreconfigurable azopolymer. The light-designed denticle structure exhibits superior hydrophobicity and an antifouling effect as sharks do. This work suggests that our novel photoreconfiguration technology, mimicking shark skin and systematically manipulating various structural parameters, can be used in a reliable manner for diverse applications requiring low-drag surfaces.
鲨鱼是一种游动速度快且具有防污能力的海洋生物，其表皮具有微米级的齿状结构。由于齿上的类肋纹几何形状通过诱导平行于流向的流体滑移来降低剪切应力，因此鲨鱼皮具有低阻力和防污的显著特点。尽管人们对受鲨鱼皮启发的低阻力表面给予了极大关注，但在微米尺度上准确模拟齿状结构并精细控制其结构特征仍然是一个重要挑战。本文提出了一种利用光致重构偶氮聚合物来制造低阻力鲨鱼皮仿生齿状结构的新方法。设计好的齿状结构表现出了优异的疏水性和防污效果，就像鲨鱼一样。这项工作表明，我们的新型光重构技术可以可靠地模仿鲨鱼皮，并系统地控制各种结构参数，可用于需要低阻力表面的各种应用。
