Creating long-lived superhydrophobic polymer surfaces through mechanicallyassembled monolayers

We show that elastomeric surfaces can be tailored using "mechanically assem bled monolayers" (MAMs), structures that are fabricated by combining self-a ssembly of surface grafting molecules with mechanical manipulation of the g rafting points in the underlying elastic surface. The versatility of this s urface modification method is demonstrated by fabricating MAMs with semiflu orinated (SF) molecules. These SF-MAMs have superior nonwetting and barrier properties in that they are "superhydrophobic" and nonpermeable. We also e stablish that these material characteristics do not deteriorate even after prolonged exposure to water, which usually causes surface reconstruction in conventionally prepared SF self-assembled monolayers.