Tunable Wettability Pattern Transfer Photothermally Achieved on Zinc with Microholes Fabricated by Femtosecond Laser

A quickly tunable wettability pattern plays an important role in regulating the surface behavior of liquids. Light irradiation can effectively control the pattern to achieve a specific wettability pattern on the photoresponsive material. However, metal oxide materials based on light adjustable wettability have a low regulation efficiency. In this paper, zinc (Zn) superhydrophobic surfaces can be obtained by femtosecond-laser-ablated microholes. Owing to ultraviolet (UV) irradiation increasing the surface energy of Zn and heating water temperature decreasing the surface energy of water, the wettability of Zn can be quickly tuned photothermally. Then, the Zn superhydrophobic surfaces can be restored by heating in the dark. Moreover, by tuning the pattern of UV irradiation, a specific wettability pattern can be transferred by the Zn microholes, which has a potential application value in the field of new location-controlled micro-/nanofluidic devices, such as microreactors and lab-on-chip devices.

Automated summary

This paper demonstrates the rapid tunability of zinc superhydrophobic surfaces using femtosecond-laser-ablated microholes to control wettability. Surface energy of zinc can be increased by UV irradiation while surface energy of water can be decreased by heating water temperature to achieve quick photothermal wettability tuning. The potential application of the zinc superhydrophobic surfaces in micro-/nanofluidic devices is highlighted.