Fabrication and super-hydrophobicity of TiO2 nanostructure with urchin shapes

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) film with urchin-like nanostructures has been successfully fabricated without invoking any catalyst or template on silicon substrate. The morphological features characterized by FE-SEM showed that TiO2 film consisted of numerous sharply tipped micro-daggers with lengths of several micrometers and diameters of about 20 nm. X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD) shows that all diffraction peaks can be indexed to the rutile phase of TiO2. The water repelling characteristics of the film were measured by Contact Angle Meter as well as snapshots taken from a Hitachi camera. This measurement shows the water has a contact angle (CA) of about 151.2°. The above measurements indicate that the TiO2 film has super-hydrophobic property. © 2010 The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.