Novel, stable and durable superhydrophobic film on glass prepared by RF magnetron sputtering

A novel and facile approach has been adopted to fabricate a nanostructured superhydrophobic (SHP) film on glass by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The surface morphology, XRD pattern, chemical composition and wettability were analyzed by corresponding methods. It was found that the as-prepared SHP surface exhibited a prominent superhydrophobicity with a contact angle (CA) up to 168.9° and sliding angle less than 1°, which was mainly attributed to the low surface energy of hexadecyltrimethoxy silane and Al2O3-ZnO (mass ratio (Al/Zn) ≈ 1:1.2) nanofibers along with the presence of high proportions of micro/nano air pockets induced by a hierarchical composite network. Moreover, the as-prepared SHP surface demonstrated good stability under outdoor and ambient environment, and retained its superhydrophobicity even at severe temperatures as well as in strong corrosive surroundings.