Raspberry-like PS/CdTe/Silica Microspheres for Fluorescent Superhydrophobic Materials

Superhydrophobic particulate films were fabricated via deposition of raspberry-like fluorescent PS/CdTe/silica microspheres on clean glass substrates and surface modification. Particularly, the fluorescent microspheres were prepared by a kind of modified strategy, namely introducing poly (acrylic acid)-functionalized polystyrene microspheres and thiol-stabilized CdTe quantum dots into a hydrolysis reaction of tetraethoxysilane simultaneously. And through adjusting the reaction parameters, the polystyrene spheres with two particle sizes and three colors of CdTe quantum dots aqueous solution were obtained. Consequently, raspberry-like microspheres consist of polystyrene cores and the composite shells of CdTe quantum dots and silica. These microspheres possess a fluorescent characteristic and form a hierarchical dual roughness which was conductive to superhydrophobicity, and the hydrophobic tests also showed the contact angles of water droplets on the surface of the raspberry-like microspheres which were over 160° at room temperature. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1325-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.