Facile electrochemical route to directly fabricate hierarchical spherical cupreous microstructures: Toward superhydrophobic surface

A templateless, surfactantless, electrochemical route is proposed to directly fabricate hierarchical spherical cupreous microstructures (HSCMs) on an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate. The as-prepared HSCMs have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The HSCMs prepared by simple potentiostatic technique exhibit hierarchical spherical microstructures with higher roughness. After further chemisorption of a self-assembled monolayer of n-dodecanethiol, the as-prepared compact surface becomes superhydrophobic with a contact angle as high as 152°.