Fabrication of superhydrophobic polymer films with hierarchical silver microbowl array structures

Superhydrophobic films with hierarchical silver bowl array structures were prepared by thermally evaporating silver on monolayer templates of self-assembled PS spheres. [Display omitted] ► The present fabrication method for flexible superhydrophobic films allows for a large area fabrication. ► The prepared superhydrophobic films show excellent stability after bending strongly the surfaces. ► The synthesized films exhibit uniform wettability over the whole surface. ► The superhydrophobic films could find applications as self-cleaning curved surfaces. Flexible superhydrophobic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films with silver bowl-like array structure are fabricated based on the thermal evaporation with sphere monolayer as templates and the modification of 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorodecanethiol on silver surface. The silver microbowl arrays were composed of silver nanoparticles with an average diameter size of ca. 10nm. The polymer films exhibit excellent stability and remarkable superhydrophobicity with a high water contact angle (CA) of about 163° and a low sliding angle (SA) of less than 3°.