Ultra-repellency of Al surfaces: design and evaluation

Aluminum (Al) surfaces with ultra-repellency as well as desirable robustness were designed and fabricated. With photolithographic patterning of a thick SU-8 layer and sputtering of a thin Al film, re-entrant micro-pillar textured Al surfaces were prepared. After derivatization with perfluoroalkyl phosphoric acid (FPA), the textured Al surfaces showed ultra-repellency for a wide variety of liquids. The contact angles (CAs) of deionized (DI) water, hexadecane and dodecane were larger than 150°, and those of methanol and ethanol were larger than 100°. The sliding angles (SAs) of DI water, hexadecane and dodecane were 5°, 10°, and 10°, respectively, showing excellent superamphiphobicity. The SAs of methanol and ethanol were in the range of 20°–30°. The robustness of the ultra-repellent Al surface was evaluated by three parameters: robust height (H*), robust angle (T*) and robust factor (A*). For the DI water probing, the values of the parameters are H* ≈ 403, T* ≈ 119 and A* ≈ 92, respectively, indicative of a desirable robustness. We clarified that only re-entrant structures can support composite liquid–solid–vapor interfaces when the corresponding Young’s CAs are smaller than 90°, and the function of the nanometer structures of the hierarchical textures which were widely adopted to fabricate superamphiphobic surfaces is to help construct re-entrant structures. FPA derivatization is effective in lowering the surface energy of Al surfaces, combining with re-entrant textures to provide a simple and high throughput approach to ultra-repellency for a wide variety of liquids.