Reactions of polyethylene surfaces with the downstream products of an air plasma: Gas phase and surface spectroscopic studies

Influence of O(3P)/O2 Flux on the Atomic Layer Deposition of B2O3 Using Trimethyl Borate at Room Temperature

“…Saturation of the methoxy species is observed upon exposure to a total TMB of 4.5 × 10 7 L, whereas O­( 3 P)/O 2 exposures did not completely remove the methoxy contamination even after 18 000 L of exposures. The apparent loss in methoxy concentration is due to its conversion to ester-like [B–O–C­(H)O]* surface species. , O­( 3 P)/O 2 dosing was concluded to be optimum when no further decrease in −OCH 3 or increase in −O–C5O was observed. It should be noted that saturation measurements were not performed again after the first TMB + O 2 /O­( 3 P) ALD cycle.…”

“…Instead, the high O­( 3 P)/O 2 flux caused a conversion of the surface methoxy species to a stable, more oxidized C species. We tentatively identify this as an ester surface species, as such ester-like bonds typically exhibit binding energies in the range of 288.5–288.9 eV. , …”

“…These components correspond to silicon carbide at 282.7 eV (denoted by C−Si), adventitious C at 284.7 eV (denoted by C adv ), single-bonded oxidized carbon at 286. during degradation studies of polymeric chains and hydrocarbons using thermally cracked O 2 and oxygen plasma treatments. 12,24,56 Figure 9 shows the saturation coverage data obtained from the atom % of −OCH 5a) but similar to those reported for stoichiometric B 2 O 3 . 31, 55 The observed decrease in the B 1s binding energy during reaction in the high-flux regime is consistent with some incorporation of carbon into the growing B 2 O 3 film.…”

“…This deconvolution was performed by constraining the FWHM of the components to be equal to each other. These components correspond to silicon carbide at 282.7 eV (denoted by C–Si), adventitious C at 284.7 eV (denoted by C adv ), single-bonded oxidized carbon at 286.3 eV (denoted by C–O), and ester-like species at 288.7 eV (denoted by O–CO). ,− ,, The observed C–O and O–CO species are attributable to the presence of residual boron methoxy [B­(OCH 3 ) n ]* and surface esters [B–O–C­(H)O]*, respectively, after TMB and O­( 3 P)/O 2 exposures. The deconvoluted spectrum clearly shows the presence of multiple C bonding environments, reinforcing the conclusion that a heavily oxidized C species remains at the surface in the high-flux regime.…”

Chemical Vapor Deposition of Silver on Plasma-Modified Polyurethane Surfaces

“…The surface concentration of nitrogen remains constant even after 7 min of O 2 plasma treatment, whereas in the case of the air plasma treatment, the ratio [N]/[C] decreases by 9%. While these effects are small, the use of an air plasma seems to be more effective in incorporating oxygen-containing functional groups than pure O 2 plasma, probably because the presence of nitrogen increases the yield of oxygen activation/dissociation in the plasma source. − Our results show that the incorporation of nitrogen seems to be negligible, probably due to the short life time of excited nitrogen species and to the distance between the sample surface and the plasma source. In our configuration it seems that nitrogen species generated in the plasma source are de-excited before reaching the substrate surface.…”