• Clean Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2008

In this study, we successfully fabricated a super-hydrophobic polymer layer on the surface of slide glass using the solubility difference of a polymer at two different solvents. After dissolving polystyrene (PS) resins in tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a good solvent and then adding ethanol(EtOH) as a poor solvent, we were able to fabricate super-hydrophobic surface. We also investigated the effect of EtOH addition, coating methods, solution mixing time and speed, and other alcohols on the surface hydrophobicity. The water contact angle (WCA) of the fabricated surface revealed $WCA>150^{\circ}$ and the microporous surface structure composed of microparticles with the size less than $5\;{\mu}m$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.86-86
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• 2010

Micro- and nanoscale texturing and control of surface energy have been considered for superhydrophobicity on polymer and silicon. However these surfaces have been reported to be difficult to meet the robustness and transparency requirements for further applications, from self cleaning windows to biochip technology. Here we provided a novel method to fabricate a nearly superhydrophobic soda-lime glass using two-step method. The first step involved wet etching process to fabricate micro-sale patterns on soda-lime glass. The second step involved application of $SiO_x$-incorporated DLC to generate high intrinsic contact angle on the surface using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. To investigate the effect of surface roughness, we used both positive and negative micro-scale patterns on soda-limeglass, which is relatively hard for surface texturing in comparison to quartz or Pyrex glasses due to the presence of impurities, but cheaper. For all samples we tested the static wetting angle and transparency before and after 100 cycles of wear test using woolen steel. The surface morphology is observed using optical and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results shows that negative patterns had a greater wear resistance while the hydrophobicity was best achieved using positive patterns having static contact angle up to 140 deg. with about 80% transparency. The overall experiment shows that positive patterns at etching time of 1 min shows the optimum transparency and hydrophobicity. The optimization of micro-scale pattern to achieve a robust, transparent, superhydrophobic soda-lime glass will be further investigated in the future works.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.277-281
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• 2009

Superhydrophobic $SiO_2$ thin films were successfully fabricated on a glass substrate by sol-gel method. To fabricate $SiO_2$ thin film with a high roughness, $SiO_2$ nano particles were added into tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) solution. The prepared $SiO_2$ thin film without an addition of $SiO_2$ nano particles showed a very flat surface with ca. 1.27 nm of root mean square (RMS) roughness. Otherwise, the $SiO_2$ thin films fabricated by using coating solutions added $SiO_2$ nano particles of 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 wt% showed a RMS roughness of ca. 44.10 nm, ca. 69.58 nm, ca. 80.66 nm, respectively. To modify the surfaces of $SiO_2$ thin films to hydrophobic surface, a hydrophobic treatment was carried out using a fluoroalkyltrimethoxysilane (FAS). The $SiO_2$ thin films with a high rough surface were changed from hydrophilic to hydrophobic surface after the FAS treatment. Especially, the prepared $SiO_2$ thin film with a RMS roughness of 80.66 nm showed a water contact angle of $163^{\circ}$.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.262-267
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• 2009

Superhydrophobic $TiO_2$ thin films were successfully fabricated on a glass substrate by wet process. Layer-by-layer (LBL) deposition and liquid phase deposition (LPD) methods were used to fabricate the thin films of micro-nano complex structure with a high roughness. To fabricate superhydrophobic $TiO_2$ thin films, the (PAH/PAA) thin films were assembled on a glass substrate by LBL method and then $TiO_2$ nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of (PAH/PAA) thin film by LPD method, Subsequently, hydrophobic treatment using fluoroalkyltrimethoxysilane (FAS) was carried out on the surface of prepared $TiO_2$ thin films. The $TiO_2$ thin film fabricated with 45 minutes immersion time on $(PAH/PAA)_{10}$ showed the RMS roughness of 65.6nm, water contact angel of $155^{\circ}$ and high transmittance of above 80% (>650nm in wavelength) after the hydrophobic treatment. The Surface morphologies, optical properties and contact angel of prepared thin films with different experimental conditions were measured by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), UV-Vis spectrophotometer and contact angle meter.