Open Access

Fabrication of Hydrophobic ZnO Surfaces on SS304 Substarates

R. Amiruddin, Advanced Materials Lab, Department of Physics, NITT, TN, India. Akshay Srinivas, Advanced Materials Lab, Department of Physics, NITT, TN, India. C.S. Sujith Kumar, Nano Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, TN, India. M.C. Santhosh Kumar santhoshmc@nitt.edu
Advanced Materials Lab, Department of Physics, NITT, TN, India.

---

---

Abstract

We have deposited undoped ZnO and 3% Al doped ZnO layers upon stainless steel (SS 304) substrates to study the hydrophobic nature of the surface. The ZnO layers were deposited at 673K by spray pyrolysis. Then the prepared films were annealed at various temperature like 723K, 773K, 873K and 973K. The structural and compositional analysis shows that the ZnO has a preferential growth along (002) planes. By contact angle measurement, it is revealed that annealed samples at 723K for both ZnO as well as 3% Al doped ZnO surfaces exhibits maximum contact angle of 120.59° and 125.97° respectively, which shows that the surfaces are hydrophobic. The photoluminescence spectra show that there are blue and green emission peaks in all samples. Thus, the hydrophobic ZnO thin films can be of great importance in commercial application as transparent self-cleaning surfaces.

Full Text

Reference

---

Bico, J., Thiele, U., and Quere, D., Wetting of textured surfaces, Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicohem. Engn. Aspects, 206, 41-46(2002). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0927-7757(02)00061-4

Erbil, H.Y., Demire, A.L, Avci, Y., Mert, O. ,Transformation of a Simple Plastic into a Superhydrophobic Surface, Science, 299, 1377-1380(2003). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1078365

Feng, X.J., Jiang, L., Design and Creation of Superwetting/Antiwetting Surfaces, Adv. Mater., 18, 3063-3078(2006). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.200501961

Li, Y., Cai, W., Duan, G., Cao, B., Sun, F., Lu, F., Superhydrophobicity of 2D ZnO ordered pore arrays formed by solution-dipping template method, J. Colloid Interface Sci., 287, 634-639(2005). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2005.02.010

Richard, D., Clanet, C., Quere, D., Brief Communications- Surface phenomena: Contact time of a bouncing drop, Nature, 417, 811(2002). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/417811a

Sik Park, S., Lee, J.M.,Kim. S.J., and S.W., Kim, Journal of the Korean Physical Society, 53 (2008) 183.

Tarwal, N.L., and Patil, P.S., Superhydrophobic and transparent ZnO thin films synthesized by spray pyrolysis technique, Appl. Surf. Sci., 256, 7451(2010). 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2010.05.089