Electrochemical Fabrication of Optical Transparent and Tunable Wettability Nickel Hydroxide for 2D Microfluidic Channels

Abstract

One of the great challenges in fabricating superhydrophobic surface is to maintain the optical transparency because the increase of the surface roughness increases the effect of Mie scattering, which thereby hinders the optical applications. In this work, we report a facile approach to fabricate multifunctional surface which possesses optical transparent and tunable wettability via stepwise anodic electrodeposition of nanostructured nickel hydroxide films and post-treatment of self-assembled octadecyltrimethoxy silane (ODS) monolayer on the F-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass. The wetting contrast between superhydrophobic (nickel hydroxide) and hydrophilic (FTO) is utilized to fabricate the transparent two-dimensional (2D) microfluid channels with a fast flow speed of 5mm/s through a cost-effective electrochemical attachdetach micropatterning technique.