2. Adhesion of the plasma-polymerized fluorocarbon films to silicon substrates The adhesion properties of the plasma-polymerized FC coatings were determined by using a test, already employed by Yasuda and Sharma [13] (see Fig. 1 and Table 1) in which the silicon substrates coated with plasma FC-films were boiled in a0.9% sodium chloride solution. The FC thin films produced in the processes 1 and 2 were lifted after a very short time (15 minutes). Coatings generated in process 3 were lifted after the second cycle of boiling. The films produced in processes 4 and 5 withstood the complete test procedure. The results are shown in Fig. 3. The poor adhesion of the polymerized films in the first two processes is due to the fact that these processes do not involve a plasma pre-treatment process. The difference between processes 1 and 3 is only in the plasma pre-treatment (process 1 does not contain the pre-treatment step of the silicon surface). The fluorocarbon films deposited by processes 4 and 5 have shown the best adhesion. These test results indicate that the plasma pre-treatment is very important and necessary for a good adhesion of the FC coatings to the silicon surfaces. 2.3. Patterning of FC films 2.3.1. Patterning through resist mask. The patterning of the FC films through a photoresist mask (conventional All resist AR-P351) was examined after deposition for process No. 5. Different coating parameters were investigated to improve the adhesion of the resist to the FC surface. The best adhesion results were obtained using the process parameters, shown in Table 3. Differences in the thickness uniformity of so-deposited resists were in a range below 5%. The samples were etched in a pure oxygen plasma in an RIE-system after the lithography steps (pre-bake, exposure, development, post-bake). A resolution of 2 /xm was obtained. A significant increase in the surface energy was not observed after resist stripping. The sessile contact angle of water was 103°. 2.3.2. Lift-off process for patterning thin plasma polymerized FC films. A lift-off process was also examined to pattern the thin FC films. The lithography steps were used before the plasma polymerization process was carried out (Fig. 2). A standard resist AR-P351 was coated directly onto the Si substrates. After all lithography