Bioinspired Anti-Fogging and Anti-Fouling Artificial Compound Eyes

摘要

Curved artificial compound eyes (ACEs) attract enormous research interestowing to their potential applications in medical devices, surveillance imaging,target tracking, and so on. However, fog, dust, or other liquids are likely tocondense on the device surface under a humid, low-temperature environmentor outdoors, thus affecting the optical performance. In this work, a multifunctionalACE (MF-ACE) is fabricated by a combination of ⅰ) femtosecond laserwet etching, ⅱ) soft lithography, and ⅲ) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) swellingmethods. The fabricated device is close-packed with over 3000 microlenses(≈108 μm diameter and ≈15 μm height) on a spherical macrolens(6.56 cm diameter and 0.87 cm height). The trapped silicone oil in thecross-linked PDMS endows the as-fabricated ACE with excellent waterrepellence and anti-fogging, anti-fouling, and self-cleaning abilities.In addition, the ACE shows high optical performance and the ommatidia havea spatial resolution of 50.8 lp mm~(?1). The imaging and focusing experimentsdemonstrate its high optical properties and uniformity. It is anticipated thatthis research may provide useful guidelines for the fabrication of anti-foggingand anti-fouling optical devices, and such device enables potentialapplications in autonomous vehicles, medical, or vision systems underharsh environmental conditions.