Plasma Nanostructuring of Polymers: Different Routes to Superhydrophobicity

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we review different plasma processes developed in our laboratory to obtain nanostructured superhydrophobic polymer surfaces. All methods consist of a single step and lead to functional materials which combine a fluorinated chemistry with unique surface morphologies. The transition from sticky to slippery superhydrophobicity, crucial for several applications ranging from microfluidics to outdoor self‐cleaning surfaces, is found by properly tuning process parameters. Methods are compared in terms of process time‐scale and compatibility to different substrates. magnified image