Multifunctional Silicon Inspired By A Wing Of Male Papilio Ulysse

Effective entrapment of air and light is a key element for maintaining stable superhydrophobicity and enhancing anti-reflection or absorption. Inspired by a wing of male Papilio ulysse having a unique structure for enabling effective trapping of air and light, we demonstrate that the structure consisting of well-defined multilayer decorated by nanostructures can be obtained on a silicon wafer by a simple microelectromechanical process, consequently resulted in stable superhydrophobocity under static and dynamic conditions, and strong wideband optical absorption. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3664636]