Dry gaseous remote plasma deposition of perfluorinated material with tuneable crystallinity and hydrophobic properties

Abstract

Hydrophobic surfaces are needed in countless applications. Anti freezes surfaces, anti-bacterial surfaces or antithermal among others. A gaseous approach allows to quickly hydrophobize and conformally coat complex surfaces without altering the bulk material. In the present paper, we suggest a facile route to quickly deposit thin hydrophobic material from methane and tetrafluoromethane via remote plasma deposition while being able to tune the degree of hydrophobicity (from hydrophobic to ultrahydrophobic) by studying the effect of ratio between the two reactants and the temperature of the substrate. We found out that linear oligomer chains can be synthesized in the gas phase and we postulate that with the appropriate substrate T°, a nucleation process takes place, which produce microscopic rose petals-like structures which gives rise to a Cassie-Baxter like ultrahydrophobicity.