Device Fabrication
Laboratory scale devices with highly specific features and geometries provide researchers with the optimally controlled conditions required for modern research applications. Plasma treatment enables the fabrication of these devices directly through covalent bonding or indirectly by facilitating the adhesive potential of intermediate epoxys, glues or other adhesives. Either of these processes can be used to clean and bond materials including polymers, metals, semiconductor substrates and much more. Plasma treatment is the primary method of microfluidic device fabrication as PDMS-PDMS or PDMS-glass surfaces can be bonded and sealed irreversibly to create leak-tight channels with hydrophilic surfaces. This page contains brief application summaries and relevant articles concerning the use of plasma treatment in device fabrication.
Battery Research
Recent advances in battery research have made lithium-ion batteries a mainstay of electric vehicles, smartphones, and grid-scale energy storage. Lithium-ion batteries contain several major components. A positively charged region (cathode) stores...
Programming Naive T Cells
Adoptive T cell therapy (or T-cell transfer therapy) is an emerging immunotherapy with the potential to improve outcomes for late-stage cancer patients. The technique relies on programming naïve T cells to induce therapeutic responses directly in...
Photocatalysis
Photocatalysis is a process where light energy, usually from ultraviolet (UV) sources, is used to accelerate a chemical reaction through the activation of a catalyst. The ability to degrade harmful substances and improve material properties under...
Bacteria Sensors
Bacteria sensors play a crucial role in reducing food spoilage, minimizing economic losses and illness from foodborne diseases. These sensors can detect spoilage earlier, eliminating its potential to spread throughout the supply chain, from...
Textile Chemistry
Textile chemistry is important for numerous markets, including clothing, automotive, and outdoor recreation industries. Plasma treatment is a dry, non-toxic process that can make textiles water-repellent, oil-repellent, or both. In this application...
Research Spotlight: Osteogenic Differentiation
Electrical stimulation plays a critical role in a cell’s interactions with its microenvironment, guiding proliferation, differentiation, and function. Consequently, electroactive materials hold significant promise as tissue engineering scaffolds, to...
Innovations in Disease Modeling 2024
Harrick Plasma is excited to sponsor Technology Network’s upcoming Innovation in Disease Modeling Online Symposium on April 24th and 25th! The event brings together leaders in disease modeling from across the globe and covers a wide range of disease...
Research Spotlight: Microplastics
Harrick Plasma Synthetic textiles such as polyester or nylon have many desirable properties, including low cost and moisture-wicking ability. However, synthetic fabrics shed large amounts of microplastics when the fabric rubs against itself during washing. These...
Solar Collectors
Non-toxic Electroplated Coatings for Solar Parabolic Trough Collectors Despite contributing to 50% of the global energy demand, thermal energy has often been neglected as an application for renewable energy technologies, instead losing ground to...
Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)
What is Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)? Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a modified form of Raman spectroscopy often used in the life sciences for cell analysis. SERS has also been used to detect chemical residues for...
Superhydrophobic Surfaces
Plasma treatment can be a beneficial step for creating superhydrophobic surfaces through promoting strong adhesion of a hydrophobic coating, surface roughening, and plasma polymerization.Applications of Superhydrophobicity Hydrophobic surfaces have...
Research Spotlight: Ice Crystallization
Ice crystallization on electrical lines or airplane wings can disrupt operations and even endanger lives. A proposed technique to reduce ice crystallization involves slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS). These ice-repellent surfaces...
Research Spotlight: Blood Plasma Separation
Blood plasma separation is a vital process for the detection of biomarkers which can indicate diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Centrifuges, the most commonly used method of separation, requires large amounts of time and blood. Additionally,...
Research Spotlight: Membrane Distillation
Many desalination plants around the world rely on membrane distillation to extract drinkable water from seawater. However, membrane distillation is also used to treat industrial wastewater prior to discharging it into the environment. Industrial...
Research Spotlight: Rewritable Graphene Oxide Holograms
Security holograms are a vital anti-counterfeiting measure on banknotes, ID cards, and passports. A recent hologram fabrication method involving graphene oxide reduction explores new materials which can be used as holographic substrates. In this...
ASCB-2023
The Harrick Plasma team is pleased to announce that we will be exhibiting at the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) conference 2023 in collaboration with Alvéole! We will join Alvéole at booth 508 to discuss the benefits of pairing plasma...
C. Elegans
Caenorhabditis elegans (C. Elegans) is an invaluable model organism in cell biology due to its simplicity, transparency, genetic tractability, and the conservation of many cellular processes. It has contributed significantly to our understanding of...
Microrobotics
Microrobotics is an emerging technology attractive to the biotechnology industry and environmental sciences because of its versatility and vast potential. While microrobot design and function varies widely, they are defined by their small size and...
Thin Film Electronics
Thin film electronic devices made using flexible materials, such as plastics, metals, or polymers, are growing in popularity. Their ability to be bent, folded, and rolled as well as being lightweight and durable makes them ideal for a variety of...
Alveole Primo
Harrick Plasma is thrilled to announce a new collaboration effort with Alvéole, makers of PRIMO: Bioengineering Technology. PRIMO is a maskless photopatterning platform that offers precise control over the cellular microenvironment. Applications of...
Porous Metal Nanoshells
Hollow porous nanoshells can be tailored to have unique physical and chemical properties for potential use in catalysis and biosensor applications. Plasma treatment can be applied to facilitate nanoshell fabrication and alter physical properties and morphology....
Zinc Oxide Films
Creative Commons license. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an exciting alternative wide bandgap semiconductor that has promising use in sensors and flexible electronics. Plasma treatment can be applied to prepare surfaces for ZnO deposition, improve electrical properties through...
Graphene Transfer
Graphene is commonly deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on a growth substrate followed by transfer onto a target substrate appropriate for its specific application. Plasma treatment can be applied to support and facilitate various graphene...
Nanowires
Conductive nanowires have been extensively studied recently for their potential use as transparent conducting electrodes in flexible electronics, wearable biosensors (wearable electronics), organic light emitting diodes OLEDs, and solar cells [1-3]....
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), or deep sequencing, provides researchers and clinicians with extensive genetic data with a multitude of applications. By fragmenting genetic materials and performing millions to billions of reads simultaneously,...
Covid-19 Research
The fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has required unprecedented efforts by the research community to understand, diagnose, and treat the Sars-Cov-2 virus. Harrick Plasma is proud to have its plasma cleaners involved in this groundbreaking...
3D Printing
3D printing is ubiquitous in modern professional and academic laboratories, where researchers continue to find innovative applications. Its essential function is to rapidly provide complex 3D structures with high precision. The technology is now...
Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo EM)
Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo EM) is a technique used to study the structure and function of macromolecules with near atomic resolution. Structural biologists employ Cryo EM to identify and map individual atoms, in the pursuit of understanding...
Single Cell Sequencing
Single cell RNA sequencing (ScRNA-seq) is a powerful tool developed to identify gene expression of individual cells in complex biological tissues. Conventional assays assume homogeneity, averaging gene characteristics across all cells within a...
Featured Distributor: SmarTeam
Harrick Plasma is happy to announce our renewed exclusive distributor relationship with SmarTeam, our sole exclusive agent to offer Harrick Plasma products in Taiwan. With offices in Taipei and Taichung, SmarTeam offers professional sales and...
Graphene-based Sensors
Graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon with a hexagonal crystal structure, is especially appealing for use in sensor applications because of its high surface area and abundance of active sites for analyte capture, favorable semiconductor properties such as high...
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a versatile tool that directly measures and maps intermolecular forces with atomic resolution. AFM is used across a wide range of disciplines to characterize mechanical properties, to generate 3D surface profiles,...
Enhance Plasmonic Response in Silver Nanoparticles
Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) is gaining interest as a highly sensitive analytical technique to detect chemical and biological molecules in low concentrations. Plasma treatment is utilized to clean patterned substrates, specifically designed for LSPR, and...
Acoustofluidics
Surface acoustic waves (SAW) offer high precision, contactless control of small volumes of liquid in microfluidic devices. Through the implementation of SAW in microfluidic devices (Acoustofluidics), researchers can achieve label free sorting of...
Spin Coating
Using plasma treatment and spin coating in combination, researchers can achieve uniform material coatings with improved stability and performance. Plasma treatment alters surface chemistry by introducing hydrophilic oxygen containing functional groups. Polar groups...
Immunoassay Development
Immunoassays identify disease biomarkers in patient samples and enable the detection of viruses, cancers and various other pathogens by exploiting the relationship between antibodies and antigens [1]. Widely used diagnostic immunoassays such as...
Fluorescence Microscopy
Plasma cleaning is essential to the preparation of fluorescence microscopy samples. Plasma removes organic contamination and introduces polar groups to glass or quartz slide surfaces. As a result, plasma removes fluorescent impurities that would...
Organ on a Chip
Organ on a chip models, fabricated with plasma treatment, replicate key tissue structure, function and other physiological characteristics to better explore drug delivery, toxicology and disease progression in vitro. In medical research, in vivo...
Plasma Treatment & Resin Bond Strength in Dental Ceramics
A Harrick Plasma cleaner was recently highlighted at the 49th Annual Session of the American College of Prosthodontists (Oct 30 - Nov 2, 2019) in Miami, FL by researchers from the U.S. Army Advanced Education in Prosthodontics. The poster, titled...
Titanium Implants
Plasma treatment is used to tailor titanium and titanium alloy surface properties for improved osseointegration in dental and orthopedic implant research. Titanium is a well-known and frequently used implant biomaterial due to its biocompatibility,...
Featured Distributor: Alpha Science
Harrick Plasma is happy to announce a new exclusive distributor relationship with Alpha Science in South Korea. Centrally located in Seoul, Alpha Science offers improved customer service and support for Korean universities, national research...
Featured User: Fesarius Therapeutics
Harrick Plasma is excited to partner with FesariusTherapeutics Inc., maker of DermiSpere™, a dermal regeneration scaffold that promises game-changing efficacy in a $5 billion addressable market. DermiSphere utilizes patented collagen microsphere...
TiO2 Nanostructures for Solar Cells
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have been heavily investigated as a promising low-cost alternative to silicon-based solar cells. A combination of TiCl4 chemical and O2 plasma treatment has been studied to improve the performance of DSSCs based on...
Cell Adhesion
Cell adhesion plays an integral role in cell culture and tissue engineering. In the native environment, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) bind to the extracellular matrix and neighboring cells to provide structural support and chemical cues vital for...
Plasma Oxidation of Graphene
Graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon with a hexagonal crystal structure, has been heavily investigated in the past decade for its many unique material properties. With its high electrical and thermal conductivity, near optical transparency, and...
DNA Combing
DNA Combing, a technique used in the analysis of single molecules of DNA, offers researchers an opportunity to better understand the dynamics of replication, transcription and individual molecule interactions. While advances in DNA sequencing...
Shaping Nanoparticles by Plasma Treatment
Nanoparticles (NPs), which typically range in size from a few to 100 nm diameter, are readily found in nature or can be fabricated from a broad range of materials (metallic, organic, inorganic). The combination of their material composition,...
Research Spotlight: Conducting Polymer & Gold Electrode Adhesion
Harrick Plasma → RS: Conducting Polymer Conducting Polymers (CP), such as polypyrrole (pPy), are promising materials with potential applications as electrochemical energy storage devices, actuators and biosensors due to their conductivity, redox activity and...
Nitrogen-doped Graphene by Plasma Treatment
Graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon with a hexagonal crystal structure, has been heavily investigated in the past decade for its many unique material properties. With its high electrical and thermal conductivity, near optical transparency,...
Photoresist: Cleaning, Spinning & Descum
To more effectively coat and pattern substrates such as silicon wafers and glass with photoresist, plasma treatment is used extensively to enhance three crucial steps: Cleaning, Spinning and Descum. An essential first task is to ensure that the...
Tissue Culture Plastic (Polystyrene)
Inexpensive, disposable and transparent, plasma treated polystyrene, or tissue culture plastic (TCP), is the most extensively used cell culture material, not only because of its aforementioned qualities but because of its biological affinity....
Featured Distributor: Mycro Technologies
Harrick Plasma is excited to announce the renewal of an exclusive distributor relationship with Mycro Technologies, who will continue to promote and offer our products in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and, now, Vietnam. Founded in 2008, Mycro...
Plasma Lithography
One common and easily employed method for surface micropatterning is plasma lithography, in which a deformable mask is placed in contact with a substrate surface before plasma treatment to create a chemical template for subsequent processing steps....
Featured User: Zymtronix
Harrick Plasma is excited to announce that Zymtronix, a Cornell Biotech start-up also located in Ithaca NY, has completed a successful test evaluation of our plasma cleaner's capabilities. Zymtronix develops new materials and cutting-edge processes...
What Our Customers are Saying…
"Harrick Plasma's instruments have proved to be very user friendly, with little to no experience required to successfully operate. Their well designed instruments, paired with the extremely knowledgeable, quick responding, and research guiding staff scientists have...
Added Applications: February 2019
In February 2019, we launched the new Applications Resource with five broad topics, Nanoscale Cleaning, Alter Surface Chemistry, Device Fabrication, Biology & Biomedical and Surface Patterning, that encompass the majority of plasma cleaning...
Research Spotlight: Nucleic Acid Biosensor
Microfluidic Devices display immense potential as point of care (PoC) diagnostic instruments for the detection of infectious diseases and the screening of antimicrobial resistance. In particular, rapid detection is important in the context of single...
What Our Customers are Saying…
“Plasma treatment is an essential part of our microfluidic devices fabrication. We use a Harrick Plasma Cleaner to activate the surface of polydimethylsilicone (PDMS) devices and glass coverslips for permanent bonding. We use microfluidic devices for studies in cell...
What Our Customers are Saying…
"We have worked with Harrick Plasma for several years now to introduce their plasma cleaners to researchers and businesses for PDMS bonding and microfluidic device fabrication. The Harrick Plasma systems are robust as well as easy to use and maintain. We and all our...
What Our Customers are Saying…
“The Harrick Plasma cleaner is easy to use and can quickly process many samples in a short time. Also the technical staff is readily available to answer any scientific questions regarding the handling of machine. l would highly recommend using a Harrick Plasma cleaner...
What Our Customers are Saying…
"Harrick Plasma's products have played a central role in our efforts to develop new technologies for single-cell mRNA sequencing, such as Seq-Well. Harrick Plasma Cleaners reliably functionalize the micro-devices and membranes we use for Seq-Well. We have several...
Welcome to our New Website
The Harrick Plasma Technical Team is excited to announce the commencement of our News and Research Blog along with the arrival of our New Website. We take pride in working directly with our customers and delivering up-to-date protocols and...
Electrode Cleaning
Due to the small size and extreme fragility of nanoelectrode surfaces, gentle plasma treatment is the optimal method for numerous electrode cleaning applications. The most popular alternative cleaning processes include mechanical polishing and...
APTES
(3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES), an aminosilane originally developed as an adsorbent for affinity chromatography, has developed into a versatile tool for improving surface chemistry in cell studies and microfluidic device fabrication....
Microfluidic Cell Culture
Microfluidic devices are rapidly becoming a more advantageous cell culture platform than macroscopic culture vessels (dishes, flasks and well-plates) for numerous applications. Two dimensional cell culture benefits from a vast pool of established...
Neuron Morphology & Function
Neuron morphology, proliferation and function are regulated by a complex system of chemical and biophysical cues cumulatively termed the neuronal niche. Researchers endeavoring to model neuron activity, develop functional tissues or test drug...