Development of a robust, self-cleaning, amphiphobic, and electrically conductive coating on a flexible polymer substrate

Amphiphobic surfaces are repellent to water and oils, which are usually developed on rigid materials. The numerous advantages of flexible materials over rigid materials, especially the fabrication of deformable electronic devices, have accelerated research on polymer substrates. Electrically conductive materials with amphiphobicity could further improve the performance of electronic devices. Herein, an amphiphobic and electrically conductive coating was fabricated on a flexible polymer substrate. An overhang structure was constructed on well-distributed microscale pillars using sputtering by a glancing angle deposition technique. The surface was then chemically modified using drysurf solution. The coating exhibited high repellency to various liquids with different surface tensions. In addition, the good self-cleaning property made it easy to clean the contaminants on the surface using water droplets. To test the feasibility of the deposited Ag film on the polymer substrate as a flexible electrode, a cyclic fatigue test was employed. Under the repeated fatigue test, the coating performed well, with a minimal change in the electrical resistance for 5000 bending cycles. Furthermore, the coating presented good resistance to chemical immersion tests. The superior performance in the amphiphobicity, self-cleaning property, and mechanical and chemical robustness promised it to be a good candidate for electrode materials for flexible electronics.