Slippery quartz surfaces for anti-fouling optical windows

The surface of camera-based medical devices is easily smeared by blood and fog during the surgical procedure, causing visual field loss and bringing great distress to both doctors and patients. In this article, a slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS) on a quartz window surface that can repel various liquids, especially blood droplets is reported. A femtosecond laser pulse train was used to create periodic microhole structures on the silica surface. The subsequent low surface energy treatment and lubricant infusion led to the successful preparation of a slippery surface. Such blood-repellent windows exhibited high transparency, great antifogging, and antibacterial properties. In addition, the slippery ability of the as-prepared surface exhibited outstanding stability since the surface could withstand harsh treatments/environments, such as repeated pipette scratches and immersion in different pH solutions. The as-prepared millimeter-sized quartz samples with SLIPS were attached to the endoscope lens as a protective coating and could maintain high visibility after repeated immersion in blood. We believe that the coating developed in this study will provide inspiration for the design of next-generation endoscopes or other camera-guided devices that will resist fouling, keep clear vision, and reduce operation time, thus offering great potential applications in lesion diagnosis and therapy.