Fabrication of mussel-inspired highly adhesive honeycomb films containing catechol groups and their applications for substrate-independent porous templates

Porous surface patterns are used in a wide variety of practical applications. Honeycomb-patterned porous polymer films are good templates for preparing porous surfaces due to their simple fabrication and the arrangement of pores on the surface. Catechol groups include in adhesive protein of mussels have attracted much attention due to their highly and substrate-independent adhesive properties. In this paper, highly and substrate-independent adhesive honeycomb-patterned porous polymer films are prepared by using amphiphilic copolymer having catechol moieties. Furthermore, porous surface patterns are transferred on various organic or inorganic substrates by wet etching with using adhesive honeycomb films as templates. Substrate-independent adhesive honeycomb films are prepared from amphiphilic copolymers containing catechol groups as hydrophilic moieties. The top layers of the honeycomb films, prepared from an amphiphilic copolymer, which contain an optimum number of catechol moieties, exhibit excellent adhesion under alkaline and acidic conditions. Micrometer-sized dimple arrays are prepared on various surfaces by using a top layer of the film as an etching mask.