Plasma Technology Overview
| Article Index |
|---|
| Plasma Technology Overview |
| What is a Plasma? |
| Plasma Effects |
| Plasma Cleaning |
| Plasma Surface Activation |
| Plasma Coatings |
| Plasma Etching |
| All Pages |
Plasmas are not a lab curiosity. Plasma processing has been an essential production tool for more than 30 years in the fabrication of microelectronic devices for example. Over this period, plasma processes have also permeated a much broader range of industries: automotive, medical, textiles, and plastics to name but a few.
Today plasmas are routinely used to clean and surface treat plastic automotive bumpers, performance textiles and filter media, stainless steel syringe needles, angioplasty balloon catheters, plastic lenses, golf balls, and many other diverse products.In fact, it would be difficult to identify a modern product that has not benefitted from plasma processing at some stage during its fabrication.
Plasmas have a number of unique properties that have lead to such widespread application:
- Ability to treat complex 3D objects and micro-channels
- Environmentally friendly, no waste chemicals
- Can be almost infintely 'tuned' to deliver surface specific properties
- Ability to treat temperature sensitive materials
- Treat conductors, semi-conductors and insulators alike
- Very low unit cost per treatment
- Ability to produce high value-added property to product
- and many, many, more