Novel swelling-assisted socket molding enables dynamic control of microstructure surface repellency, suggesting broad applications in superhydrophobic materials.
Bionic mushroom‐like microstructures inspired by springtails cuticle have great research value for advanced superhydrophobic applications. While various fabrication approaches for reentrant micropillars are developed, including etching and 3D print techniques, these methods remain constrained by critical challenges: low‐throughput manufacturing, compromised structural integrity during demolding, limited material compatibility, and insufficient reconfigurability for dynamic wettability control. Herein, a novel swelling‐assisted socket molding (SASM) strategy is presented that enables precise fabrication of tunable mushroom‐like microstructures surface. This approach leverages controlled polymer swelling to achieve damage‐free demolding and greatly reduces the risk of damage to the microstructures during the demolding. The SASM strategy exhibits excellent reconfigurability, enabling the fabrication of different concave cap shapes with various anisotropies, precise control of repulsion in any region, and active switching of surface repellency by magnetic fields. The surface shows excellent robustness, scalability and shape adaptability, which provides an important reference for efficiently fabricating durable and multifunctional mushroom‐like microstructures surfaces.
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Sun et al. (2025) studied this question.
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