1. PTFE surface etching in the post-discharge of a RF scanning plasma torch: evidence of ejected fluorinated species
- Author
-
Dufour, Thierry, Hubert, Julie, Viville, Pascal, Duluard, Corinne Y., Desbief, Simon, Lazzaroni, Roberto, and Reniers, Fran��ois
- Subjects
Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) ,Condensed Matter - Other Condensed Matter ,Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors ,Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) ,Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter ,Physics - Plasma Physics ,Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) - Abstract
The texturization of poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) surfaces is achieved at atmospheric pressure by using the post-discharge of a radio-frequency plasma torch supplied in helium and oxygen gases. The surface properties are characterized by contact angle measurement, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. We show that the plasma treatment increases the surface hydrophobicity (with water contact angles increasing from 115 to 155{\deg}) only by modifying the PTFE surface morphology and not the stoichiometry. Measurements of sample mass losses correlated to the ejection of CF$_2$ fragments from the PTFE surface evidenced an etching mechanism at atmospheric pressure.
- Published
- 2016