Surface treatment of plastic substrates for improved adhesion of thin metal films through ion bombardment by an anode layer ion source

摘要

Ion bombardment is an effective mechanism for the modification of polymer surfaces, removing contamination from polymer surfaces, increasing cross-linking of polymer chains and adding functional groups to increase bonding between the polymer substrate and deposited films. Anode layer ion sources (ALSs) provide high current ion beams with high reliability (no filaments or grids) and are easily scaled to treat wide substrates, making them ideal for ion beam pretreatment of polymer substrates. An improved ALS, the pointed pole anode layer ion source (PPALS) has been developed to produce a better collimated ion beam with a reduced rate of magnetic pole erosion due to sputtering by stray ions (pole sputtering). This results in reduced contamination of substrates and a longer lifetime of the magnetic poles. The PPALS was used to modify the surface of PMMA substrates by oxygen ion bombardment to increase the adhesion of a sputtered aluminum coating. To demonstrate the benefits of the PPALS design compared to conventional ALS sources, pole sputter contamination rates were measured, with the PPALS demonstrating significantly reduced contamination.