Biomimetic fabrication and characterization of an artificial rice leaf surface with anisotropic wetting

Abstract

In nature, rice leaves exhibit special anisotropic sliding capabilities. Although researchers have succeeded in fabricating artificial rice leaf structures and realizing the wettability function of the leaf surface, these methods used to date are complex and do not allow the fabrication of surfaces with large area. Herein, we adopted a simple technology - two steps soft transfer to fabricate biomimetic rice leaf. The fabricated surface well reproduced the structures of the rice leaf surface and exhibited a static superhydrophobic property similar to that of the real rice leaf surface. In terms of its dynamic wettability, it clearly exhibited an anisotropic sliding property. Systematic measurements showed that the sliding angles parallel and perpendicular with the vein direction were 25° and 40°, respectively. The method was simple and reliable, without the need for expensive instruments and complex technologies, which could be used for the rapid fabrication of large-area artificial rice leaf surfaces. We believe that the artificial rice leaf surface fabricated by this method has great potential applications in biomimetic functional surfaces, microfluidics, and so on. © 2012 The Author(s).