FACILE FABRICATION OF ARTIFICIAL COMPOUND EYES BASED ON PARTICLE-ASSISTED BREATH FIGURE METHOD

For fabrication of biomimetic structures, it is in lack of a facile and versatile method other than simple replication of bio-template. By using particle-assisted breath figure (BF) method in which solid particles are used as stabilizers in the BF method, we prepared regularly patterned porous polymer films with particle arrays decorating the inside walls of the open pores. First, particle-assisted fabrication of honeycomb-structured hybrid films was carried out by employing solid particles as stabilizers in the BF method. The self-assembly of nanoparticles at the fluid/fluid interface (Pickering emulsions) in the BF method has been explored to direct nanoparticles onto BF microarrays. Regularly patterned porous polystyrene films with particles decorating the inside walls of the open pores can be readily prepared. Furthermore, micropores decorated by particles with different covering densities were formed by carefully controlling the application quantity of silica nanoparticles. Using the obtained BF porous film as molding substrate, we prepared poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) negative replica (reverse honeycomb-structured substrate) with arrays of island-like protuberances by means of soft lithography. Hierarchical PDMS surfaces were successfully fabricated by complete transfer of the decorating particles onto the PDMS protuberances. And such structure highly mimics the compound eyes. It could provide inspirations for designing the artificial biomimetic structures based on self-assembly and soft lithography.