Shape-Deformed Mushroom-like Reentrant Structures for Robust Liquid-Repellent Surfaces

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Surface Science
• Biomimetics

Background:

• Biomimetic liquid-repellent surfaces offer self-cleaning and anti-sticking properties.
• Fabricating complex biomimetic structures like springtail-inspired doubly reentrant topologies is challenging with conventional methods.
• Existing fabrication techniques involve complex materials, multiple steps, and chemical treatments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a simple micro-shape-deformed approach for fabricating mushroom-like reentrant structures.
• To utilize digital light processing (3D printing) with volumetric shrinkage for microstructure fabrication.
• To achieve highly stable liquid repellency without perfluorinated coatings.

Main Methods:

• Employing digital light processing (3D printing) to fabricate microarchitectures.
• Leveraging volumetric shrinkage during photopolymerization to induce shape deformation.
• Utilizing nonuniform cross-linking and light propagation to create mushroom-like reentrant structures.

Main Results:

• Successfully fabricated mushroom-like reentrant structures via a simple micro-shape-deformed approach.
• Demonstrated that volumetric shrinkage and photopolymerization dynamics lead to the desired microarchitectures.
• The resulting 3D-printed microstructures exhibit stable liquid repellency.

Conclusions:

• A simple and effective 3D printing method for biomimetic reentrant structures has been developed.
• This approach overcomes limitations of conventional fabrication techniques.
• The fabricated surfaces show promising liquid-repellent properties suitable for various applications without hazardous coatings.