“…Silicon wafer surfaces terminated with silicon oxide (Silicon Valley Microelectronics, USA) were used to produce flat hydrophobic surfaces by esterification [39][40][41][42] with 1-octanol (Merck, Australia). Silica substrates were first cleaned ultrasonically (10 min each in acetone, ethanol, and water), then soaked for 15 min in a 5H 2 O:1NH 4 OH:1H 2 O 2 solution (RCA-SC1) at 75 • C and washed with copious amounts of water, and then dried under a nitrogen stream [43,44].…”