Self-cleaning and photocatalytic lithography in hydrophobic/oleophobic nano-titania layers

The tailoring of materials wettability has been the topic of numerous researches [1], thanks to its great relevance in manifold actual and potential industrial applications. Photolithography is one of the most advanced patterning techniques employed to obtain the controlled localization of hydrophobic/hydrophilic patches. In the present work, an innovative approach exploiting the photoactivity of nanostructured TiO2 films, called photocatalytic lithography, was studied. Moreover, the scarcely investigated topic of the oleophobicy modulation, was here investigated by testing the ability of different derivatizing molecules to tailor the wetting properties of oxide films with respect to apolar solvents.