Icing has a severe negative impact on daily life and equipment stability. The slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS) has been widely studied for icephobicity. However, loss of lubrication leads to the failure of icephobicity. In this work, a selflubricating photothermal surface (SLPS) based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and silicone oil was fabricated by a facile preparation method to realize passive anti-icing/deicing and active deicing simultaneously. SLPS can inhibit frost formation, delay freezing, and reduce ice adhesion strength (τ ice ) under lowlight and dark conditions. The τ ice value of SLPS-5-2 was 5.82 kPa in the absence of light at −20 °C. MWNTs improve the oil locking ability and inhibit oil loss, enhancing durability. The τ ice value of SLPS-5-2 remained within 20 kPa during 30 icing cycles. Meanwhile, SLPS has the excellent external replenishment capability to recover icephobicity. In addition, SLPS shows excellent photothermal deicing performance to melt frost, droplets, and ice layer quickly. Icing can be removed fast due to the oil layer. Silicone oil enhances the lateral heat transfer, improving the photothermal deicing. This all-in-one integration of the self-lubricating and photothermal effect finally boosts icephobicity compared to the traditional SLIPS or individual photothermal materials toward environmentally compatible and solar-driven icephobicity.

No abstract

We employ an ultrafast laser with 1 kHz repetition rate and 130 fs pulse width to fabricate micro/nanotextures and unique surface structures on silicon surfaces under different environments. First, we study the effect of vacuum and fabricate micro-spike structures at 800 nm wavelength and a pressure of 4 · 10 −3 Pa. We observe even sub-100 nm ripple structures on micro-spikes after 800 nm laser irradiation in distilled water because the produced bubbles are expelled from the chamber. Finally, we show that submicron-spike structures fabricated after 400 nm laser irradiation in distilled water are smaller than those in vacuum.

Ni-Co coating or texturing surface has been studied extensively to improve the anti-friction ability of the surface. In this paper, we combine the advantages of Ni-Co coating and textured surface, and then use a simple, novel and easily controlled method to fabricate a series of micro/nanoprotrusions on the Ni-Co coating surface. The nanotribology properties were characterized by AFM. The result shows that the micro/nanotextured surface significantly reduced the friction forces compared with the original Ni-Co coating surface. The half-ellipsoid patterns have better tribology properties than half-hemispherical patterns. Both laser power and laser scanning speed were found to influence the friction performances.

No abstract