Low-damage plasma processing of polymers for development of organic-inorganic flexible devices

Plasma generation and control technologies for processing of polymers have been developed with multiple low-inductance antenna (LIA) units, as a promising candidate for next-generation processing of hybrid flexible devices. Properties of argon–oxygen mixture plasmas sustained with multiple LIA units have been investigated in terms of ion energies bombarding onto polymer surface. Ion energy distribution at the sheath edge of the argon–oxygen mixture plasmas showed considerable suppression of ion energies as small as or less than 10 eV. Effects of the plasma exposure onto polymers have been examined using hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HXPES) in terms of chemical bonding states of the polymer surface and the interface between polymer and silicon film.