Study to surface superhydropbic of moth wings and mechanism

• 1、Key Laboratory for Terrain Machine Bionics Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China

Abstract：The surface wettability of the moth wings of thirty three species (thirty three genera，nine families ) was qualitatively and quantitatively studied. Scanning electronic microscopy observation shows that there are sales arranging like overlapping tiles on the surface of the moth wings. The scales are overlaped horizontally and there is particular space vertically in the direction of the wing veins. The surface of scale is formed by submicro-class grooves and nanometer-class vertical gibbosities. The static contact angle of water droplet on the surfaces of the wings was measured using an optical contact angle measuring system. The results show that the contact angle with scales is in the range from 144.8° to 152.9°，while that without scales is from 90.0° to 115.9°. It indicates that the surfaces of the wings with scales are more hydrophobic. The wettability of the surface of the wings is attributed to the co-effects of the micro- and nano- structures of the scales.

Keywords： bionic, non-smooth surface, super-hydrophobicity, moth, scale