No abstract

Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) substrates are used in many applications where the substrates need to be elongated and various treatments are used to regulate their surface properties. In this article, we compare the effect of three of such treatments, namely, UV irradiation, water plasma, and plasma polymerization, both from a molecular and from a macroscopic point of view. We focus our attention in particular on the behavior of the treated surfaces under mechanical stretching. UV irradiation induces the substitution of methyl groups by hydroxyl and acid groups, water plasma leads to a silicate-like layer, and plasma polymerization causes the formation of an organic thin film with a major content of anhydride and acid groups. Stretching induces cracks on the surface both for silicate-like layers and for plasma polymer thin coatings. This is not the case for the UV irradiated PDMS substrates. We then analyzed the chemical composition of these cracks. In the case of water plasma, the cracks reveal native PDMS. In the case of plasma polymerization, the cracks reveal modified PDMS. The contact angles of plasma polymer and UV treated surfaces vary only very slightly under stretching, whereas large variations are observed for water plasma treatments. The small variation in the contact angle values observed on the plasma polymer thin film under stretching even when cracks appear on the surface are explained by the specific chemistry of the PDMS in the cracks. We find that it is very different from native PDMS and that its structure is somewhere between Si(O2) and Si(O3). This is, to our knowledge, the first study where different surface treatments of PDMS are compared for films under stretching.

The nitrogen content in tantalum nitride (TaN x ) thin films, where x indicates that TaN x is not generally stoechiometric, can be measured directly by XPS. This is the purpose of the present study. However, the XPS spectra of TaN x present electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) peaks that lead to a complex peak fitting, particularly for self-passivated thin films. A complete peak fitting procedure based upon Tougaard's background, the Doniach-Sunjic Function and EELS peaks, is presented. It is applied to two self-passivated TaN x thin films elaborated by reactive sputtering and presenting a different nitrogen content. The physical properties of these surfaces are interpreted in terms of Ta 4f 7/2 chemical states directly dependent on the nitrogen content. The main results are discussed and improvements are proposed to the method.