Improving the Adhesiveness of Cemented Glass Components by DBD Plasma Pre-Treatment at Atmospheric Pressure

Abstract

Cemented optical components and groups are essential devices for the realisation of modern systems and apparatuses used in a broad range of different applications such as telecommunications, imaging and even surgery. However, various parameters may affect the stability of cemented connections. In this context, the impact of dielectric barrier discharge plasma at atmospheric pressure on the adhesiveness of cemented glass components was evaluated in the present work. For this purpose, the plasma-induced change in surface wettability and energy as well as the cement’s adhesive pull strength was measured. Investigations were performed on samples, which were subject to different procedures of artificial ageing. It is shown that the adhesive pull strength of cemented glass components was notably increased after a short-term plasma treatment of merely 10 s due to an enhanced wettability of the applied UV-curing optical cement. The pull strength, i.e., the adhesiveness of cemented glasses was increased by a factor of 2.1 to 4.6, depending on the particularly applied artificial ageing procedure. The results and findings finally demonstrate the high potential of the applied short-term plasma treatment as a cleaning and surface activation step in optics manufacturing on an industrial scale.

Atmospheric Pressure Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma-Enhanced Optical Contact Bonding of Coated Glass Surfaces

“…In previous works, such plasmas have also been investigated for quite different applications in optics manufacturing. This includes the improvement in adhesiveness of classically cemented optics [24], surface cleaning [25], e.g., for increasing the laser-induced damage threshold [26], and polishing of optical glasses and media [27]. Against this background, demonstrating the exceptional high potential of DBDs at atmospheric pressure in the production of precision optics, the suitability of plasmas for the enhancement of optical contact bonding processes was investigated in the present work.…”