Bioinspired Lotus-like Self-Illuminous Coating

Abstract

The sensitivity of long persistent phosphor materials (LPP) to moisture greatly limits their applications especially in humid environments, which cause the hydrolysis of LPP and shorten their lifetime. In this work, a facile, environmentally friendly, and low-cost method was developed to prevent the infiltration of water or moisture to the LPP by doping LPP with SiO2 nanoparticles to form a superhydrophobic coating. The superhydrophobic coating provided a stable environment to the self-illuminous system, which not only can resist the infiltration of water but also can have good self-cleaning property, similar to the lotus leaf effect. This facile method will be very beneficial for expending further application of LPP especially in high humidity.