From natural lotus leaf to highly hard-flexible diamond-like carbon surface with superhydrophobic and good tribological performance

Fabrication of hard-flexible and superhydrophobic carbon films is considered as a challenging issue for expanding the applications of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films. In this paper, a novel method for fabricating highly hard, flexible and superhydrophobic DLC films with bio-mimicking micro textures using natural lotus leaf as templates is reported. By combining nanocasting, electroplating methods and finally physical vapor deposition, DLC films with “lotus leaf”-like textures were successfully fabricated, which exhibited good balance of high hardness (approximately 21 GPa) and toughness as well as excellent superhydrophobicity with contact angle up to 160°. Furthermore, the as-prepared superhydrophobic DLC films could remain as an effect lubricant layer. Combination of excellent physical and mechanical properties of highly hard, superhydrophobic as well as flexible DLC films with bio-mimicking textures will be beneficial for their potential applications as engineering material.