Adhesion Tuning at Superhydrophobic States: From Petal Effect to Lotus Effect

The influence of the micro topology on the solid/water wetting and adhesion behaviors is studied in this work. By simply tailoring the morphology, superhydrophobicity can be achieved on a weak hydrophobic surface. And the further fine-tuning of the surficial geometry realizes the conversion of superhydrophobic states, from Petal to Lotus Effect. The experimental data indicates that the key factor that distinguishing these two states lies in the number of solid/liquid interfaces. This work provides an answer to the fundamental study of the wetting phenomena and it is a complementary to current understanding of special wettings as well.