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A novel plasma stamp has been developed allowing selective plasma treatment and coating of flat surfaces using dielectric barrier discharges at atmospheric pressure. The stamp consists of a flat carrier material covered with photoresist. The resist is structured to form cavities in which the plasma is burning. The cavity footprint is the desired structure to be reproduced or “plasma printed” on the substrate. Cavities can have any geometry and widths down to 10 µm. It is shown that the substrate surfaces can be activated in the same scale as the cavity dimensions and that the treated areas reproduce the footprint of the cavities. To be able to coat surfaces selectively, the stamp consists of multiple resist layers forming a channel network. Using this network, the cavities can be filled with process gas containing polymerizable monomers. This plasma stamp technology introduces a new MEMS process with high potential for production processes and bioscience applications.

A porous plasma stamp has been developed allowing selective plasma treatment and coating of flat surfaces by using a dielectric barrier discharge arrangement at atmospheric pressure. The stamp consists of a porous sinter metal plate covered with photoresist. The photoresist is structured to form cavities in which the plasma is burning. The cavity footprint is the desired structure to be reproduced or “plasma printed” on the substrate. It is shown that flat substrate surfaces can be treated in the same scale as the cavity dimensions and that the treated areas are defined by the footprint of the cavities with a precision in micrometer scale. This work describes in detail the manufacturing process of the plasma stamp and furthermore shows that the stamp can be used to plasma‐coat surfaces selectively because the stamp cavities can continuously be filled with process gases through the porous metal plate. Applying process gas containing polymerizable monomers to a porous material will close the pores after a certain plasma treatment time. As a consequence this work also addresses the issue of cleaning the stamp to keep it intact for a long term usage.

Cover: Using a newly developed plasma stamp, flat surfaces can be plasma‐coated and activated selectively at atmospheric pressure. The cover shows the scheme of the stamp and two stamps in action, illustrating that nearly every treatment area shape is possible. Further details can be found in the article by U. Stöhr,* A. Dohse, P. Hoppe, M. Thomas, K. Kadel, C.‐P. Klages, and H. Reinecke on page 228.

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