Chemical vapor deposited (CVD) polycrystalline diamond films with an ultrahydrophobic surface were fabricated by constructing a hierarchical structure through sputtering a ZnO layer on diamond grains, with a growth step feature. Under optimized conditions, the combined original diamond with a step structure of the ZnO can achieve a water contact angle (WCA) of as high as 141 degrees +/- 1 degrees. It is proved that WCA decreases as the roughness of ZnO/PDF reduced. It can be concluded that the step structure of diamond grains and ZnO nuclei size have a great influence on the variation of WCA. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.