Facile fabrication of a superhydrophobic cage by laser direct writing for site-specific colloidal self-assembled photonic crystal

Micron-sized ablated surface structures with nano-sized 'bumpy' structures were produced by femtosecond (fs) laser ablation of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film under ambient conditions. Upon just a single step, the processed surface exhibited hierarchical micro/nano morphology. In addition, due to the tribological properties of PTFE, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) could be replicated from the laser-ablated PTFE surface without anti-adhesive surface treatment. By controlling the design of the ablated patterns, tunable wettability and superhydrophobicity were achieved on both PTFE and PDMS replica surfaces. Furthermore, using fs laser ablation direct writing, a flexible superhydrophobic PDMS cage formed by superhydrophobic patterns encompassing the unmodified region was demonstrated for aqueous droplet positioning and trapping. Through evaporation-driven colloidal self-assembly in this superhydrophobic cage, a colloidal droplet containing polystyrene (PS) particles dried into a self-assembled photonic crystal, whose optical band gap could be manipulated by the particle size.