TY - JOUR
T1 - Omnidirectional self-assembly of transparent superoleophobic nanotextures
AU - Wong, William S. Y.
AU - Liu, Guanyu
AU - Nasiri, Noushin
AU - Hao, Chonglei
AU - Wang, Zuankai
AU - Tricoli, Antonio
PY - 2017/1
Y1 - 2017/1
N2 - Engineering surface textures that are highly transparent and repel water, oil, and other low surface energy fluids can transform our interaction with wet environments. Despite extensive progress, current top-down methods are based on directional line-of-sight fabrication mechanisms that are limited by scale and cannot be applied to highly uneven, curved, and enclosed surfaces, while bottom-up techniques often suffer from poor optical transparency. Here, we present an approach that enables the rapid, omnidirectional synthesis of flexible and up to 99.97% transparent superhydrophobic and -oleophobic textures on many variable surface types. These features are obtained by the spontaneous formation of a multi re-entrant morphology during the controlled self-assembly of nanoparticle aerosols. We also develop a mathematical model to explain and control the self-assembly dynamics, providing important insights for the rational engineering of functional materials. We envision that our findings represent a significant advance in imparting superoleophobicity and superamphiphobicity to a so-far inapplicable family of materials and geometries for multifunctional applications.
AB - Engineering surface textures that are highly transparent and repel water, oil, and other low surface energy fluids can transform our interaction with wet environments. Despite extensive progress, current top-down methods are based on directional line-of-sight fabrication mechanisms that are limited by scale and cannot be applied to highly uneven, curved, and enclosed surfaces, while bottom-up techniques often suffer from poor optical transparency. Here, we present an approach that enables the rapid, omnidirectional synthesis of flexible and up to 99.97% transparent superhydrophobic and -oleophobic textures on many variable surface types. These features are obtained by the spontaneous formation of a multi re-entrant morphology during the controlled self-assembly of nanoparticle aerosols. We also develop a mathematical model to explain and control the self-assembly dynamics, providing important insights for the rational engineering of functional materials. We envision that our findings represent a significant advance in imparting superoleophobicity and superamphiphobicity to a so-far inapplicable family of materials and geometries for multifunctional applications.
KW - omnidirectional scalable self-assembly
KW - re-entrant textures
KW - superoleophobic and superamphiphobic
KW - ultra-transparent and flexible
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85018254330&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP150101939
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE160100569
U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.6b06715
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.6b06715
M3 - Article
C2 - 28027438
AN - SCOPUS:85018254330
VL - 11
SP - 587
EP - 596
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
SN - 1936-0851
IS - 1
ER -