Fluorine-Free Superhydrophobic Microstructured Films Grown by PECVD

Plasma-enhanced (PE) CVD is used to create, in a single step, a superhydrophobic (SH) (water contact angle over 1508) layer starting from hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) vapor (i.e., without fluorine) in a low-frequency, capacitively coupled plasma reactor under low pressure. Several SH microstructures are obtained, depending on experimental parameters (gas pressures, substrate rotation, pulsed glow discharge, plasma duration) deposited on various substrate types. The presented technique can produce thin SH transparent films (below 1 mu m) or thicker ones (above 10 mm) to modify the surface of a macroporous hydrophilic membrane in order to render it SH with a water transmembrane pressure close to 2 bar.