XPS analyses of polystyrene thin films treated under DC pulsed discharges conditions in nitrogen, oxygen and oxygen-argon mixtures

This paper is devoted to polystyrene thin film treatment under DC pulsed discharges in nitrogen, oxygen and oxygen-argon mixtures. XPS analysis is used in order to investigate the new chemical bonds generated by the reactive particles colliding the surface from the plasma. The experimental conditions are close to the best running conditions deduced from [16, 75, 86]. Correlations between microscopic analyses obtained by XPS through the knowledge of the surface chemical composition and macroscopic ones realized by studies of water drop deposited on the films ( contact angle measurements) are presented. It is pointed out that the wettability is highly improved when the percentage of oxygen atoms incorporated in polystyrene surface reaches a high value. C - O, C = O and O - C = O are the main chemical bonds and it is found that the oxygen uptake happens during a very short time (about one second for the treatment duration time, i.e. about 10 ms on account of the duty factor value). A high oxygen rate is observed, correlated to the formation of a maximum Deltatheta/theta(i) plateau value (wettability). Reaction processes in the plasma bulk and on the polystyrene surface are proposed, taking into account the bond energies of polystyrene. As a consequence, the polystyrene treatment is interpreted assuming two steps for the reaction processes: in a first step, chemical bonds are broken by energy transfer from reactive particles to the surface and in a second step, new chemical bonds are generated. In this spirit, the main reactive plasma particles are described and surface reactions are proposed on the polystyrene surface.