Fabrication of Mesoscopic Structure on PMMA Surface by Atomic Hydrogen and Evaluation of the Surface Functionality

Surface properties of polymers such as wettability and adhesiveness play an important role in industrial applications. The properties can be enhanced by fabricating a mesoscopic structure to the surface. In this study, we examined a chemical etching which is a simple and direct technique for the surface profile control, using atomic hydrogen generated by hot-wire catalytic method. Several tens of nanoscale structures were fabricated on poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) surface by atomic hydrogen irradiation, and the size and pitch of the structure could be controlled by reaction temperature and time. The wettability of PMMA film surface changed from hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity by formation of mesoscopic structures.