Applied Surface Science, Vol.426, 957-964, 2017
Transparent superhydrophobic solar glass prepared by fabricating groove-shaped arrays on the surface
In this paper, we fabricate superhydrophobic solar glass by microstructuring of the surface using picosecond laser pulses and then coating the surface with a layer of fluoroalkylsilane molecules. The glass surface shows the hierarchical structures containing both micro- and nanoscale roughness after laser irradiation. The increase in glass surface roughness makes the surface exhibit superhydrophilicity with a water con tact angle of 0 degrees. After surface modification with 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane, the glass surface exhibits stable superhydrophobicity. By varying the laser line intervals, we can regulate the surface morphology and the wetting properties. With the increase of laser line interval, the contact angles of the glass surfaces range from 172 degrees = 1 degrees to 156 degrees +/- 2 degrees and the sliding angles can be ignored. Before chemical surface modification, we also find that the glass surface of hierarchical structures is superoleophobic underwater. The contact angle for chloroform is 163 degrees +/- 2 degrees and the sliding angle is 1.5 degrees +/- 0.4 degrees. In addition, the as-prepared glass surface shows excellent transparency and its average transmittance is up to 87.28% in the visible spectrum. Furthermore, we find that the water droplet on the modified original glass surface looks like a lens which has zoom function. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Picosecond laser;Superhydrophobic solar glass;Groove-shaped arrays;Superoleophobic;Contact angle;Wettability transformation