Uros Cvelbar

Growth dynamics of copper oxide nanowires in plasma at low pressures

The growth time dynamics of the copper oxide nanowires (NWs) in radiofrequency plasma discharge were investigated. Grounded copper samples were treated in argon-oxygen plasma with the discharge power of 150 W for sequenced times up to 20 min. After the treatment, the samples were analysed with scanning electron microscopy and image processing to obtain the length and aspect ratio of the NWs. A growth mode with the saturation was observed in dependence to NW length, where the maximal length of 5 μm was achieved in 20 min. However, the best NW aspect ratio had maximum of about 40 after 10 min of plasma treatment. To describe and understand nanowire growth mechanism, a theoretical model was developed and it is in agreement with the experiment. The model results indicate that different densities of the ion current to the side and top area of NW modify the NW growth in height and width. The NW growth is enhanced by presence of ions, and thus this implies that it can be controlled by discharge power. This explains much faster growth of copper oxide nanowires in plasma environment compared to prolonged thermal treatments.

Recent Advances in the Methods for Designing Superhydrophobic Surfaces

The investigations of superhydrophobicity and self-cleaning surfaces have been given a lot of attention in the last few decades. The surfaces having water contact angle larger than 90° are termed as hydrophobic surfaces and those which exhibit contact angle higher than 150° are said to be superhydrophobic. Such surfaces were first observed in nature in various plants and animals, for example, lotus leaf-like structures. Water repellence of various materials have shown great influences on various applications such as self-cleaning, anti-ageing, water-oil separation, water corrosion in electrical industry, water proof textiles, controlled transportation of fluids, etc. Generally, surface micro/nanostructuring combined with low surface energy of materials leads to extreme anti-wetting properties. The hundreds of research articles and more than 450 patents on the subject of nature mimicking self-cleaning surfaces prove the potential of this topic. Self-cleaning property depends on both surface morphology and surface chemistry. For achieving superhydrophobic surfaces, we can, typically, either increase the roughness of the intrinsically hydrophobic material or tune desired roughness and morphology on hydrophilic surfaces. Depending on such parameters a water droplet on the surface attains either Wenzel or Cassie-Baxter state. For the preparation of superhydrophobic surfaces, various physical and chemical methods have been successfully used. Methods such as hydrothermal process, using various templates, plasma surface modifications, physical and chemical vapour deposition, layer by layer deposition, electrospinning and sol-gel processing have been used for achieving desired roughness and surface chemistry on various