Replication of rose-petal surface structure using UV-nanoimprint lithography

• Petal effect means superhydrophobic and highly adhesive surfaces.
• We have replicated the rose petal pattern using nano-imprint lithography process.
• We have analyzed the hierarchical structure of rose petal indirectly.
• Petal effect could be explained Wenzel–Cassie regime.
• We made superhydrophobic and highly adhesive surface on the glass substrate.

Rose-petal surface consists of a hierarchical structure of microscale papillae and nanofolds. With this micro-nanostructure and surface energy, rose petals exhibit a special property: drops on the petal surface are spherical and do not slide when a petal is held upside down. We replicated the rose-petal surface structure by employing a UV nanomolding process using polyurethane acrylate (PUA) for the first replica and perfluoropolyether (PFPE) for the second replica. PFPE micro-nanostructures, which were identical to the rose-petal hierarchical structure, were formed on a glass substrate. The water contact angle of 144° and contact-angle hysteresis of 83° confirmed that the surface of the glass substrate exhibited a high adhesive force and superhydrophobicity.