Plasma Nanostructuring of Polymers: Different Routes to Superhydrophobicity

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.