Surface Patterning
Plasma can be employed in various ways to facilitate surface patterning, which is often a required processing step for the fabrication of multilayer devices, such as solar cells, sensors, and microfluidic chips. Plasma treatment can enhance surface wettability of substrates and templates to improve pattern transfer during contact printing and self-assembly. Plasma etching can selectively remove polymer thin films and 2D organic materials through a masking layer and can also be used to tune the feature size of polymer templates for fabricating patterned nanostructure arrays. This page provides brief summaries on the application of plasma treatment for surface patterning.
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,...