What is a Plasma Surface Treatment?

Plasma surface treatments use plasma to alter the surface of a material in order to improve surface energy for bonding and printing. Plasma treatments also increase wettability of most any substrate.

Plasma also offers the ability to coat products for waterproofing. Almost any material can be treated with plasma. We manufacture a complete line of products that are commonly used in manufacturing, R&D, and the academic environment.

All surfaces are contaminated with organics even though the contaminates are usually invisible to the casual observer. These contaminants impact an object’s ability to interact with other materials such as glue or ink. By treating an object's surface with a plasma, we are able to remove organic contaminants.

Our systems increase the bond strength of a glue or solder and provides increased reliability for printing. These treatments work well on shiny plastics and rubbers, allowing printing and bonding.

For more detailed information, we have provided information about the various uses of plasma surface treatments below. We can plasma treat most metals, plastics and rubbers.

Learn about what our plasma surface treatments can accomplish!

• Plasma Treatment Basics
  An overview of plasma treatment.
• Plasma Bonding
  Create the strongest bond possible between two dissimilar materials.
• Dry Etching
  Any plasma surface modification performed without the use of chemicals is called dry etching. All of the plasma cleaning products at Plasma Etch are designed to perform a type of dry etching.
• Oxygen Plasma Treatment
  Oxygen plasma treatment is the most common form of dry etching in use today. Oxygen (sometimes mixed with Argon) is used to treat aluminum and stainless steel surfaces as well as glass, plastics, and ceramics.
• PCB Etching Machines
  PCB etching machines allow plasma etching on printed circuit boards.
• Plasma Activation
  Activating a surface with slight modifications will allow for better printing or bonding.
• Plasma Functionalization
  Functionalization improves adhesive properties such as bondability and paintability.
• Plasma Cleaning
  Plasma cleaning is the process of cleaning a product to increase its ability to be printed on or bonded to. The goal of plasma cleaning is to remove organic surface contaminants.
• Plasma Etching
  Plasma etching is similar to plasma cleaning. However, in plasma etching, the goal is to remove a layer of the product being treated.
• Plasma Polymerization
  Plasma polymerization is commonly used to prevent silicon products from sticking together.
• Plasma Surface Modification
  Plasma treat your product's surface to accept either a bond or an ink for printing. Often used on Teflon or plastics, plasma surface modification actually modifies the surface of the material, leaving behind free radicals and allowing it to bond to glue or ink.
• Reactive Ion Etching
  Reactive ion etching (RIE) plasma surface treatment is used to etch (remove material) from treated surfaces in one direction. Our RIE systems are configured to etch straight down from the top with minimal side to side etching.