Surface fluorination of rutile-TiO2 thin films deposited by reactive sputtering for accelerating response of optically driven capillary effect

We report the acceleration of photoresponsive wettability switching by applying surface fluorination to rutile-TiO2 thin films deposited by reactive sputtering. Photoresponsive wettability switchable surfaces can be applied to optically driven liquid manipulation to enable the elimination of the electrical wiring and pneumatic tubing from fluidic systems. In this work, surface fluorination using CF4 plasma treatment is applied to rutile-TiO2 thin films, which exhibit a wider switching range of wettability than that of anatase-TiO2 thin films. Fluorine termination of TiO2 thin films increases the surface acidity and enhances its photocatalytic performance. TiO2 thin films with and without surface fluorination respectively exhibited the transition of contact angles ranging from 73.7 to 12.3 degrees, and from 70.2 to 32 degrees under UV irradiation for 15 min. Liquid introduction into a microchannel is also demonstrated, utilizing the developed TiO2 surface, which can generate a negative capillary pressure difference under ultraviolet light irradiation. (C) 2016 The Japan Society of Applied Physics