AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session PS2-ThM

Paper PS2-ThM8
Fabrication and Characterization of Plasma Processed Surfaces with Tuned Wettability

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 10:20 am, Room 2011

Session: Plasmas and Polymers
Presenter: P. Colpo, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
Authors: P. Colpo, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
A. Ruiz, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
L. Ceriotti, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
A. Valsesia, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
F. Brétagnol, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
G. Ceccone, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
D. Gilliland, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
F. Rossi, European Commission, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Italy
Correspondent: Click to Email
Plasma treatments have been extensively applied to polymers, metals or elastomers for fabricating engineered surfaces. Among others, applications of plasma processing include the alteration of the wetting properties of surfaces to create either hydrophilic or hydrophobic surfaces. The wettable behaviour of surfaces is determined by several parameters, being the surface energy and the surface roughness the most important ones. Tailoring the roughness of surfaces has been proved to be an effective method for enhancing its hydrophilic or hydrophobic character. Therefore, studying the wetting capacity of rough surfaces has attracted special interest in the last years. In this scope, we have used a combination of plasma processes including etching and polymerization to prepare rough surfaces with different hydrophilic/hydrophobic character. The surfaces have been then analysed in terms of chemistry, roughness and wettability. Surfaces with different roughness have been fabricated by etching with several gases and different treatment duration a layer of polymer resin deposited on silicon and glass substrates. The etched surfaces were analysed by XPS, ToF-SIMS, SEM, and the results were compared with the wettability and roughness, given by contact angle and surface profile measurements respectively. We found a correlation between the contact angle, i.e. the hydrophilic character, the roughness and the chemical composition of the surface. Teflon-like, acrylic acid and PEG layers were deposited on the rough plasma treated surface by plasma polymerisation. Selected wettability has been achieved combining plasma etching and plasma deposition processes. Superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces have been obtained with a fast, easy to implement method, which has also the advantage of mass production, repeatability and reliability. The surfaces fabricated have interest in a variety of applications (coatings, medical devices, biosensors, ...).