Replication of butterfly wing and natural lotus leaf nanostructures by nanoimprint on Silica Sol-gel films

T. Saison (1, 2) , C. Peroz (1) , V. Chauveau (1) , Serge Berthier (3) , E. Sondergard (1) , H. Arribart (1)

1 SVI - Surface du Verre et Interfaces
2 SGR - Saint-Gobain Recherche
3 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris

Nature offers a variety of surfaces with functional properties and is an inspiration source for numerous applications and technologies. Recently, it has demonstrated some biological surfaces are structurated at the scale of micro and nanometric for involving different properties as superhydrophobicity or superhydrophilicity [1],[2]. More broadly, researchers are turned around biological systems to create a surface with new functionalities, this field is popularly known as “Biomimetics” [3]. One of these well know applications are the lotus leaves and butterfly wings with their specific structure given a superhydrophobicity or self-cleaning properties [4],[5],[6]. Several studies report both the understanding of these micro and nano-structures and the fabrication of biomimetic structures. One of challenges is to replicate these biomimetics structures over large scales and at affordable price for industrial applications as for example the next generation of windows or windshields, Nano Imprint Lithography is potentially the most promising technique due to its low cost, its less time-consuming and its ability to imprint easily large areas. In this way, Chen and al. has shown in Ref 7 the ability to fabricate a mold from a lotus leaf [7]. The nanoimprint from Lotus leaf mold has been also done on elastomer materials as Polydimethylsiloxane [7] and polymers [8]. Here, we propose one next step with the replication of biomimetic surfaces on highly interesting sol-gel materials by nanoimprint. The structuring sol-gel materials are stable thermally and mechanically and are used in many applications such as coating of glazing, optic materials, biomaterials[9]. We have chosen to imprint the lotus leaf and butterfly wings in order to obtain superhydrophobic surfaces. In this paper, we describe a simple method to fabricate biomimetic and superhydrophobic surfaces which are thermally and mechanically stable. The paper describes first our fabrication method and then discusses the thermal properties of our biomimetic surfaces and the challenges for this technology.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

T. Saison, C. Peroz, V. Chauveau, Serge Berthier, E. Sondergard, et al.. Replication of butterfly wing and natural lotus leaf nanostructures by nanoimprint on Silica Sol-gel films. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 2008, 3 (4), pp.046004. ⟨10.1088/1748-3182/3/4/046004⟩. ⟨hal-00504478⟩