Hydrophobic microarray surface design and wettability transformation mechanism of μ-SLA 3D manufactured conic structure

Most modern hydrophobic bionic surface preparations are generally plagued by chronic issues that limit their uses, which are always characterized by a difficult preparation procedure of high prices and environmentally unfriendly. This work reports the μ-SLA additive manufacturing microarray structure capable of achieving superhydrophobic wettability with the maximum contact angle of 157º for droplets. By means of the combination of wettability theory and experiment, conical microarray structures with different spacing are designed to analyze the wettability. The preparation method adopts the micro-nano additive manufacturing process that can be formed in a single step. This structure imitates the rough structure of biological surfaces through regular array structure, which can lead to a significant improvement in the superhydrophobic properties of solid surfaces.