Many surfaces in nature have interesting topographies that lead to properties that may be desirable for engineering applications, such as superhydrophobicity (lotus leaf), high adhesion (frog toes), and drag reduction (shark skin). Although simple replication processes via polydimethylsiloxane molding have been used to replicate these topographies, they cannot be used to modify or combine these topographies for added functionality. This paper presents a novel method to digitize an arbitrary surface, either from nature or manmade, replicate it, modify it, and print it. A banana skin, an eastern wahoo leaf, and a coin were digitized using a 3D laser scanning confocal microscope and modified with arbitrary additional textures. The digitized surfaces were then printed using a UV-sensitive polymer based on two-photon polymerization. The printed surfaces replicate the original surfaces with submicron accuracy; and additional textures were added to illustrate the ability to modify the surface topography. This method enables novel surface topographies to be created that cannot be found in nature.

自然界中的许多表面都有令人感兴趣的形貌，这些形貌导致了工程应用可能需要的特性，例如超疏水性（荷叶），高附着力（青蛙脚趾）和减阻（鲨鱼皮）。尽管已经使用通过聚二甲基硅氧烷模制的简单复制工艺来复制这些形貌，但是它们不能用于修改或组合这些形貌以增加功能。本文提出了一种新颖的方法，可以对自然或人造表面上的任意表面进行数字化，复制，修改和打印。使用3D激光扫描共聚焦显微镜将香蕉皮，东部叶和硬币硬币数字化，并用任意其他纹理进行修饰。然后使用基于双光子聚合的紫外线敏感聚合物印刷数字化表面。印刷表面以亚微米精度复制原始表面。并添加了其他纹理以说明修改表面形貌的能力。这种方法可以创建自然界中找不到的新颖表面形貌。