Anti-fogging surfaces produced by plasma polymerization of acrylic acid

In this paper, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of acrylic acid (AA) was employed as a one-step and solvent-free technique to prepare durable organic anti-fogging coatings on mirror and glass surfaces. The effects of important PECVD parameters including substrate temperature and plasma power on the deposition kinetics, as well as on the structural and morphological properties of the as-deposited films were investigated. Employing a low substrate temperature (5 °C) and a high plasma power (30 W) combination resulted in the highest observed deposition rate of 27.7 nm/min. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy showed high structural resemblance between PECVD-PAA and reference poly(acrylic acid) (PAA). The PAA-deposited surfaces showed excellent and durable anti-fogging performance without any loss in their optical transparencies. Successive antifogging tests showed that the PAA thin film exhibited high functional durability without delamination, indicating that it can be used in real-world applications.