Plasma

PLASMA - A New Generation Technology

One such process is low-pressure plasma technology, an environmentally friendly and cost-efficient way to modify material surfaces on a miscroscopic level without manual operations or the use of chemical products. With this technique, it is possible in a well-controlled and reproducible way to clean, activate, etch, or modify the surface of plastic, substrate, metal or plastic material to improve their bonding capa-bilities or and to achieve totally new surface properties. Potential medical applications include modification of hydrophilic (wettability), low-friction, and barrier surface charcateristics.

PLASMA SYSTEM - Gas (Argon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, CF4 and Other Flourine Gas)

A Plasma is a partially ionized gas containing ions, electrons, atoms, neutrals. To enable the gas to be ionized in a controlled and qualitative manner, the process is carried out under vacuum conditions, A vacuum chamber is first pumped down via rotary vacuum pump system like (Leybold V-pump) to an absolute vacuum pressure 100 to 0 pa., the gas is then introduced into the chamber by means of mass flow controll valves, pressure is monitored by the vacuum diapharm gauge (piezo electric material) or (load cells), measured pressure is converted to electrical voltage and send to the PLC.

A high-frequency RF generator is then applied to power up and ionized the gas into a plasma, forming an environment that has been referred to as "The Fourth State of Matter". In the presence of sufficient energy, a solid can be melted to a liquid, a liquid into a gas, and a gas ionized into a plasma.

The formed reactive particles react in a direct way with the surface without damaging the bulk properties of the treated base material. The surface modification is limited to the outermost 10 to 1000 angstroms A of the substrate. One distinguishing characteristics of a plasma is a visible glow discharge, with colors ranging from blue-white to dark purple, depending on the type of gas.

Plasma system generally comprise five main components: the vacuum chamber, a vacuum pump, a gas controlling system, RF generator 13.56mhz and PLC controller. Various chamber plates and electrodes are added or adopt to handle particular applications. The chamber is configured to some limited application, configuration may differ to another set mode of treatment applications.

Natural air is Pump Out and vacuum out at the Chamber to approximately absolute vacuum=10 to 0 pa

Reaction Gas is then introduce (Argon), vacuum may go up to more than 100 pa, then stabilized to 10 pa, depend on the amount of gas flow.

Then RF power is
'ON' the Gas now
IONIZED and
PLASMA is created