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.
Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)
Harrick Plasma 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...
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...
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]....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...