Preparation of Superhydrophobic Silicon Oxide Nanowire Surfaces.

International audienceThe paper reports on the prepn. of superhydrophobic amorphous silicon oxide nanowires (a-SiONWs) on silicon substrates with a contact angle greater than 150° by means of surface roughness and self-assembly. Nanowires with an av. mean diam. in the range 20-150 nm and 15-20 mm in length were obtained by the so-called solid-liq.-solid (SLS) technique. The porous nature and the high roughness of the resulting surfaces were confirmed by AFM imaging. The superhydrophobicity resulted from the combined effects of surface roughness and chem. modification with fluorodecyl trichlorosilane