A bioinspired planar superhydrophobic microboat.

In nature, a frog can easily rest on a lotus leaf even though the frog's weight is several times the weight of the lotus leaf. Inspired by the lotus leaf, we fabricated a planar superhydrophobic microboat (SMB) with a superhydrophobic upper surface on a PDMS sheet which was irradiated by a focused femtosecond laser. The SMB can not only float effortlessly over the water surface but can also hold up some heavy objects, exhibiting an excellent loading capacity. The water surface is curved near the edge of the upper surface and the SMB's upper edge is below the water level, greatly enhancing the displacement. Experimental results and theoretical analysis demonstrate that the superhydrophobicity on the edge of the upper surface is responsible for the SMB's large loading capacity. Here, we call it the ‘superhydrophobic edge effect’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]