Chemical Interactions Between Polymer and Plasma

Polymers are a special class of materials situated at the borderline of animate and inanimate matter. Transitions in molecular orientation of polymers need only low energy in the range of a few or several J/mol as found at elevated temperature. In organic chemistry many different chemical reactions and reaction mechanisms exist with different kinetics. This well-known spectrum of classic reactions in organic chemistry can also be transferred to polymer chemistry and finally to polymer surface chemistry but not or only insignificantly to plasma chemistry. In contrast to ordinary chemistry, upon plasma exposure to polymers, many reactions and deposition processes occur in the gas phase or as gas phase-solid processes. The chapter also summarizes the possible reactions of functional groups upon exposure to oxygen plasma or noble gas plasmas. The ionization energies of plasma gases are far from the dissociation energies found in chemical bonds of polymers.