A facile two-step fabrication of nano-wrinkled double-layer moth-eye-like antireflection surface by integrating cage-like silsesquioxane nanoislands with fluoroacrylate

Highlight•We proposed a facile two-step fabrication of the wrinkled moth-eye-like surface.•Compressive stress and template triggered nano-wrinkled structures.•Spin-coating technology was applied to form uniform and transparent coating film.•The reflectance was decreased to 3.5 % and showed obvious hydrophobility.

Nano-wrinkled double-layer moth-eye-like antireflection coating (ARC) surfaces were fabricated by coupling octakis(methacryloxypropyl) silsesquioxane-based polymeric surface onto silsesquioxanes rigid layer on the quartz substrate. Octakis(aminophenyl) silsesquioxane (OAPS) reacted with decakis(methacryloxypropyl) silsesquioxane (CMSQ-T10) through Aza-Michael addition and octakis(methacryloxypropyl) silsesquioxane (CMSQ-T8) polymerized with hexafluorobutyl acrylate (HFBA) through radical polymerization in the rigid layer and top layer, respectively. Compressive stress, caused by mismatch of the different volumetric shrinkages between top layer and rigid layer, led to the wrinkled nanopatterned structures. Besides, the silsesquioxanes layer could offer as an in situ template and scaffold for the top polymeric surface. The reflectance was decreased to 3.5% (transmittance 98.5%) and the resulting ARC surfaces showed obvious hydrophobicity. We expect these ARC surfaces can find wide-spread applications in solar cells, camera lenses, and other photovoltaic components.