The invention discloses a photothermal evaporation surface, and a preparation method and an application thereof, and belongs to the technical field of solar photothermal utilization. The photothermalevaporation surface is formed by attaching porous microstructures, which are periodically arranged in an array, to the surface of a substrate, and every porous microstructure is a coffee ring-shaped structure formed by the accumulation of nanoparticles; and a micro-droplet generator is used to periodically arrange nanofluid droplets on the surface of the substrate in the array manner, and heatingis carried out to evaporate the droplets until dryness in order to form the coffee ring-shaped porous microstructures, periodically arranged in the array manner, on the surface of the substrate. The photothermal evaporation surface provided by the invention has a high photothermal conversion efficiency and can be repeatedly used, and the preparation method has the advantages of very small use amount of the nanofluid required for preparing the high-efficiency photothermal evaporation surface, low cost, and facilitation of industrial application.