AVS 50th International Symposium
    Biomaterial Interfaces Friday Sessions
       Session BI+PS-FrM

Paper BI+PS-FrM11
Plasma Chemistry of Allylamine for the Deposition of Nitrogen-Containing Organic Films

Friday, November 7, 2003, 11:40 am, Room 318/319

Session: Plasma Methods for Bio-interfaces
Presenter: D.C. Guerin, Naval Research Laboratory, National Research Council
Authors: D.C. Guerin, Naval Research Laboratory, National Research Council
V.A. Shamamian, Naval Research Laboratory
R.T. Holm, Naval Research Laboratory
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We studied the chemistry of an allylamine/argon plasma for the deposition of nitrogen-containing organic films. We used in situ mass spectrometry to determine the identity of the molecular ion flux to the deposition surface. Our investigation showed that under the span of powers interrogated (30-100 W) the identity of the ion flux did not substantially change. The total ion current to the deposition surface increased linearly with plasma power. However, the molecular ion mass distribution changed with the plasma pressure. In lower-pressure plasmas, the predominant ions were generated by electron-impact ionization reactions. At higher pressures ions generated by ion-molecule reactions dominate the flux to the surface. We used appearance potential mass spectrometry to confirm the creation of NH@sub 3@ as a by-product of the ion-molecule reactions. The resulting films were characterized optically. The deposition rates were highly dependent on the plasma power. However, the indicies of refraction were similar for the conditions studied. Infrared spectroscopy of the films showed that different plasma conditions resulted in only small changes in film structure. We determined that the film deposition mechanism was not controlled by plasma-ion chemistry. This contrasted with earlier results involving a saturated monomer. However, the film structure was highly dependent on the film thickness. The N-H signal increased greatly in the thicker films. Fluorescamine tagging of the amine groups in the films showed that the primary amine concentration was not well correlated to the intensity of the N-H stretch in the infrared spectra.