A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/Cu superhydrophobic composite material is fabricated by wet etching, electroless plating, and polymer casting. The surface topography of the material emerges from hierarchical micro/nanoscale structures of etched aluminum, which are rigorously copied by plated copper. The resulting material is superhydrophobic (contact angle > 170°, sliding angle < 7° with 7 µL droplets), electrically conductive, elastic and wear resistant. The mechanical durability of both the superhydrophobicity and the metallic conductivity are the key advantages of this material. The material is robust against mechanical abrasion (1000 cycles): the contact angles were only marginally lowered, the sliding angles remained below 10°, and the material retained its superhydrophobicity. The resistivity varied from 0.7 × 10–5 Ωm (virgin) to 5 × 10–5 Ωm (1000 abrasion cycles) and 30 × 10–5 Ωm (3000 abrasion cycles). The material also underwent 10,000 cycles of stretching and bending, which led to only minor changes in superhydrophobicity and the resistivity remained below 90 × 10–5 Ωm.

Copper shows a high promise in developing biomedical materials with antibacterial effect. The antibacterial effect can be enhanced by nanostructured surfaces with superhydrophobic properties, which reduce the solid contact area available for bacterial adhesion and adherent growth. Here, three structured surfaces are fabricated to test the combined effect of copper and superhydrophobicity for antibacterial effects. One of the samples is superhydrophobic but does not contain copper, one contains copper but is not superhydrophobic, and the third is both superhydrophobic and contained copper. The antibiofilm and bactericidal effects of these samples are tested against medically important Gram‐positive and ‐negative bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa). The findings indicate that copper alone without superhydrophobicity, while decreasing the cell viability in most of the tested species, supports remarkably more biomass compared to the reference sample. The superhydrophobic and copper bearing samples, while allowing adherent growth to take place, provide the greatest bactericidal effect against two P. aeruginosa strains, and both the antibiofilm and/or bactericidal effects against S. aureus and S. epidermidis. Thus, this study reports that nanostructured materials, combining superhydrophobicity with copper, can be the method of choice to neutralize pathogens with different cell‐wall structures and surface components mediating adherent growth.