Optimization of pretreatment for liquid-phase deposition of SiO2 on ARTON plastic substrate

Abstract

This study extends our previous work on liquid-phase deposition (LPD) of dense, high-quality, silicon-dioxide (SiO 2) films deposited on Si and GaAs substrates from supersaturated, hexafluorosilicic-acid aqueous at near room temperature. Pretreatment to coat the substrate surface with hydroxyl groups was found to be necessary for rapid and high-quality growth. More recent work has extended the range of LPD SiO2 to plastic. The current paper studies optimal LPD pretreatment of a plastic (ARTON) substrate. It is shown that treating ARTON plastic, first, by exposure to oxygen plasma, second, by potassium manganese (KMnO4) etching, and finally, by H202 etching, provides the plastic surihce with rich OH-radical formation. The resulting SiO2/ARTON film is of good quality and reliability, Deposition rate is up to 659 A/h, and the refractive index is about 1.44 with growth at 40°C. A growth mechanism ibr LPD-SiO2 deposition on plastic is proposed.

Plasma Treatment on the Plastic Substrates for Liquid Phase Deposited SiO2 Films for Flexible Electronics Applications

“…First, after the plasma pre-treatment, the increase ratio of COO bonding means that the surface becomes more polar, and more OH radical is developed on the surface, so the surface can react more easily with the solution [11,12]. Second, the surface becomes slightly rough after the ion bombardments by the plasma system.…”