Journal
APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE
Volume 585, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.152653
Keywords
Antireflective surfaces; Moth-eye surfaces; Nanoimprint lithography; Magnetron sputtering
Categories
Funding
- Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [DPI2017-90058-R]
- 'Severo Ochoa' Programme for Centres of Excellence in RD (MINECO) [SEV-2016-0686]
- Regional Ministry of Education and Research of the Madrid Community
- European Social Fund (ESF) [PEJD-2017-PRE/IND-3788]
- Madrid regional government [S2018/NMT-4381-MAT4.0]
- European Union [862100]
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Moth-eye nanostructures have various functionalities, but their poor mechanical resilience and durability limit their practical applications. In this study, a thin oxide coating is used to protect the nanostructures and improve their thermal stability and self-cleaning functionality.
Moth-eye nanostructures are amongst the most remarkable surfaces in nature because of their multi-functionality including antireflection, self-cleaning and bactericidal ability. Moth-eye surfaces consist of subwavelength arrays of tapered nanostructures, which are challenging to reproduce artificially. Nanoimprint lithography is probably one of the most suited technologies for this purpose. However, the poor mechanical resilience and durability of the polymeric nanocones when exposed to the environment, hinders their use in actual applications. To overcome these limitations, this work demonstrates the use of a thin oxide coating over the polymer moth-eye features imprinted on poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) films. Particularly TiO2 conformal thin film coatings are deposited by unipolar pulsed dc magnetron sputtering over the antireflective nanopatterns acting as encapsulant. The coating, while preserving the antireflective properties, protects the nanostructures against mechanical scratching and improves substantially their thermal stability to over 250 ?. Furthermore, the TiO2 layer provides additional photoinduced self-cleaning functionality and at the same time it protects the matrix from UV photodegradation. The robust and durable antireflective surfaces developed here may find application on solar cells covers, flat panel displays or on optical components.
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