A Fast and Facile Fabrication of PTFE Based Superhydrophobic and Ultra Wideband Angle Insensitive Anti‐Reflection Coatings (Phys. Status Solidi RRL 6/2018)

Fabrication of anti–reflecting superhydrophobic coatings has been of great interest to researchers for decades. Reports available in the literature mostly involve multistep chemical techniques that are complex as well as time consuming. Focusing on rapid and easy preparation of such multifunctional coatings, Rajnarayan De and co–workers (article no. 1800041) demonstrate a single step deposition of highly transparent water–repellant polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating using conventional e–beam evaporation technique. PTFE being a very low surface energy material is inherently hydrophobic and can be converted to superhydrophobic by tailoring the surface structure. The as–prepared coatings show high transmission (∼97%) in an ultra wideband wavelength range (400–1100 nm) together with angle insensitiveness over a wide range of angles of incidence (0–60°). The optimized process parameters used in the techniques reduced the time of deposition to ∼3 seconds. The figures on the cover page demonstrate substantial improvement of transmission from bare uncoated glass (top), bouncing effect of water droplets from the superhydrophobic surface, and the porous surface structure of the coatings (bottom).