Linear Plasma Sources for Surface Modification and Deposition for Large Area Coating

Plasma sources play an important role in the areas of surface functionalization, coating densification, and plasma enhanced deposition. One difficulty with many types of plasma sources is their scalability to large-area coating systems, such as web and glass coaters. Linear plasma sources show great promise as they can be easily scaled to lengths of 4 meters or more while maintaining good uniformity; they are also easy to maintain and have a low contamination rate. Linear ion sources have been successfully introduced in glass coating applications [1-2] although there are still a large number of glass coaters using other plasma treatments or even non-plasma cleaning solutions. Polymers and glass substrates typically need to be functionalized or etched to improve adhesion. Contaminates such as fingerprints and organics can be removed by including gases such as oxygen in the ion beam. Coatings to improve scratch resistance, tribological properties, and encapsulation can be deposited via such methods. Modification of coating density and properties is also possible. This paper presents some examples of the coating technology.