Liquid-Infused Slippery Stainless Steel Surface Prepared by Alcohol-Assisted Femtosecond Laser Ablation

Nepenthes-inspired liquid-infused slippery surface (LISS) attracts great attention because it can repel different kinds of liquid and shows great stability. However, the vast majority of LISSs are realized on polymer materials which limit the applications. Here, a kind of universal method to directly construct porous micro/nanostructures on any kind of materials to realize LISS is put forward. As an example, abundant micro/nanohole structures are built on stainless steel surface by alcohol-assisted femtosecond laser ablation. Then, LISS is achieved on stainless steel, which shows slippery property to variety of liquid with different chemical composition. The velocity of water droplet slipping on LISS can be tuned by water droplet volume, LISS tilt angle, and lubricant type. Some potential applications of the LISS are demonstrated by some simple experiments. Flexible movement of magnetic water droplet is realized on the LISS by controlling magnetic field. The LISS shows good antifouling performance to green alga. Moreover, the porous structures are very stable in different harsh environments. This alcohol-assisted femtosecond laser irradiation method successfully constructs porous micro/nanostructures on different kinds of materials. Thus, this work can promote the applications of LISS in droplet manipulation, microfluidics, antifouling surface, and so on.

Automated summary

A universal method for directly constructing porous micro/nanostructures on any kind of materials to achieve LISS has been proposed. By utilizing alcohol-assisted femtosecond laser irradiation, abundant micro/nanohole structures were successfully built on stainless steel surface. The LISS demonstrated slippery properties to various liquids and showed good stability in different harsh environments, with potential applications in droplet manipulation, microfluidics, and antifouling surfaces.