Surface engineering of polymers: Case study: PVD coatings on polymers

Abstract

Surface engineering as a subset of materials science is changing the properties of the surface and sub-surface region in a desirable way. A variety of advanced properties like physical, chemical, electrical, magnetic, optical, mechanical, wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant properties at substrate surfaces can be altered by surface modification of materials. The surface chemistry, morphology, and mechanical properties could be important to further adhesion, film formation process and the resulting film properties. In this work, authors present physical vapour deposition (PVD) as method for surface modification and coating deposition of polymeric materials. The method is clean ecological process that can be managed at once by one filling of PVD chamber. Namely, polymer cleaning, activation, modification of the surface and coating deposition occur consequently one by one process in the same chamber. Finally, a set of case studies of particular polymers' surface modifications are presented in this work. Plasma team presents its own experience of polymer's modification and coating deposition for targeted applications where basic polymer materials were not eligible to answer the industrial challenges.