Surface Chemical Analysis of Plasma‐Deposited Copolymer Films Prepared from Feed Gas Mixtures of Ethylene or Styrene with Allylamine

Abstract

Plasma deposited ethylene/allylamine and styrene/allylamine copolymer films were prepared and analyzed using XPS, NEXAFS and ToF‐SIMS. The relative partial flow rate of the each monomer was used as the variable deposition parameter, while the other deposition parameters were kept constant at optimized values for the retention of functional groups. The effect of the variation in the relative partial flow rates of co‐monomers on various chemical aspects of the films like unsaturation, nitrogen retention and branching was investigated revealing several non‐linear correlations. This observation is taken as an indication for chemical copolymerization processes during film deposition. An attempt is made to compare these non‐linear correlations with approaches which have been developed for classic radical copolymerization processes. The aging behavior of these plasma copolymer films was also studied; the results indicated a stabilization against oxidation in comparison to the aging of allylamine plasma homopolymers.

Controlled Surface Wettability by Plasma Polymer Surface Modification

“…Plasma copolymerization is considered as a promising and versatile technique due to its advantage of the tunable functionality over plasma homopolymerization by adjusting the monomer feed ratio. The combining properties of each monomer that participate in copolymerization opened new doors to tailor a surface [73]. Golub et al [74] reported one of the early work on RF plasma copolymerization of ethylene (ET) and tetrafluoroethylene (TFE).…”

The Definitive Evidence of a Plasma Copolymerization of Alkyl and Perfluorinated Acrylates Using High Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Mass Defect Analysis

“…[1,5,6] Going further and exemplifying the versatility of plasma polymerization, the use of two precursors to produce plasma (co)polymers (or considered as such) has been proposed as a way to monitor the properties of the deposited coating. [7][8][9] If the properties of the plasma (co) polymers change with the composition of the samples, the analytical tools traditionally used for their characterization and relying on their chemical change (mainly Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy FTIR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy XPS) fail at unambiguously demonstrate the copolymeric nature of the samples. Those techniques are indeed not sensitive to the limited microstructural modification induced by a copolymerization and the so-obtained spectra simply exhibit the two fingerprints of the two homopolymers even if a copolymer is actually produced.…”

Nanophase‐separated poly(acrylic acid)/poly(ethylene oxide) plasma polymers for the spatially localized attachment of biomolecules

“…Mixing AA with other monomers was also investigated to produce thin films with variable chemical compositions . Such plasma copolymerization allows fluorocarbons, hydrocarbons, amine‐containing species, and other moieties to be added to the deposited film and produces coatings with unconventional chemistries that can be controlled by the ratio of the supplied precursors.…”