Superhydrophobicity of self-assembled PFDTS nanostructures

The self-assembled formation of PFDTS features on mono- and multilayered silica sphere arrays is studied. The multiscaled roughness induced by PFDTS nanostructures on multilayer arrays gives rise to superhydrophobic behaviour. In contrast to previous work, the role of PFDTS is two-fold: it lowers the surface energy and simultaneously provides the essential roughness to achieve superhydrophobicity. The importance of water in the formation of the nanostructured surfaces is discussed.