Improvement of the Adhesion of a Galvanic Metallization of Polymers by Surface Functionalization Using Dielectric Barrier Discharges at Atmospheric Pressure

Abstract

An environmentally friendly plasma amination process for the activation of polymers prior to electroless metallization using dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) at atmospheric pressure was investigated. One focus of the work was on the correlation between plasma parameters and palladium coverage on the polymer on the one hand and the palladium coverage and adhesion of a galvanic copper metallization on the other hand. Using XPS spectroscopy it was found that a DBD treatment of polyimide (PI) films with mixtures of N2 and H2 leads to considerably higher Pd surface concentrations than on untreated reference samples or foils treated in air‐DBD. The Pd coverages achieved result in peel strengths of a copper metallization of up to 1.4 N · mm−1.

A comparison of chemical and atmospheric plasma assisted copper plating on carbon fiber reinforced epoxy polymer surfaces

“…Plasma activation of polymer surface prior to the metal plating procedure is known to improve the final plating adherence [5][6][7] by providing additional polar interaction forces on the interface and new chemically active functional groups to the surface. Still a wider employment of plasma pre-treatment is hampered by a complicated up-scaling to the industrial scale needs.…”

Surface modification of polylactic acid (PLA) by air atmospheric plasma treatment

“…This phenomenon occurs due to the use of atmospheric plasma which generates greats amounts of highly unstable species derived from oxygen and nitrogen in the air; so that functionalization will be produced by the insertion of species in the air; mainly species rich in oxygen due to its high reactivity and in a lower extent, species with presence of nitrogen. [33] At higher sample advance rates, the O(1s) peak height decreases thus indicating lower functionalization. Table 2 shows the values of the atomic composition obtained by XPS analysis for different nozzle-substrate distances and several advance rates.…”

Methods of gas purification and effect on the ion composition in an RF atmospheric pressure plasma jet investigated by mass spectrometry

“…The list of possible applications is long, e.g. deposition of wear-resistant SiO 2 thin films [5][6][7], pre-treatment of polymers before printing [8][9][10], sterilization/inactivation of medical tools and treatment of infectious chronic wounds [11,12] to name only some of them.…”