Controlling roughness: from etching to nanotexturing and plasma-directed organization on organic and inorganic materials

Abstract

We describe how plasma–wall interactions in etching plasmas lead to either random roughening/nanotexturing of polymeric and silicon surfaces, or formation of organized nanostructures on such surfaces. We conduct carefully designed experiments of plasma–wall interactions to understand the causes of both phenomena, and present Monte Carlo simulation results confirming the experiments. We discuss emerging applications in wetting and optical property control, protein immobilisation, microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip fabrication and modification, and cost-effective silicon mould fabrication. We conclude with an outlook on the plasma reactor future designs to take advantage of the observed phenomena for new micro- and nanomanufacturing processes, and new contributions to plasma nanoassembly.