This study presents the wetting properties, including hydrophilicity, hydrophobicity and anisotropic behavior, of water droplets on the silicon wafer surface with periodical nanopatterns and hierarchical structures. This study fabricates one-and two-dimensional periodical nanopatterns using laser interference lithography (LIL). The fabrication of hierarchical structures was effectively achieved by combining photolithography and LIL techniques. Unlike conventional fabrication methods, the LIL technique is mainly used to control the large-area design of periodical nanopatterns in this study. The minimum feature size for each nanopattern is 100 nm. This study shows that the wetting behavior of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and hierarchical patterns can be obtained, benefiting the development of surface engineering for microfluidic systems. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.