Harrick Plasma → Applications → Materials → Glass →
Glass slides and coverslips are essential substrates in microscopy. To ensure reliable and high-clarity imaging, it is critical that these surfaces are free of organic contamination. Plasma treatment offers an efficient, chemical-free solution for cleaning glass surfaces, removing organic residues and improving optical performance.
Beyond cleaning, plasma treatment also activates the glass surface, rendering it highly hydrophilic with a near-zero water contact angle. This activation provides uniform deposition and adhesion of surface coatings.
Coatings such as bovine serum albumin (BSA) or polyethylene glycol (PEG) are commonly applied after plasma treatment to tether individual molecules to the surface, enabling advanced single-molecule and fluorescence-based assays.
Plasma-treated glass slides are ideal for a wide range of life science applications, including surface functionalization, biosensing, and cell imaging. However, to maintain optimal surface activation, plasma treatment should be performed immediately prior to downstream steps to minimize hydrophobic recovery.
In the following application note, you will learn how Harrick Plasma’s plasma cleaners have been used to prepare glass slides for various applications.
Plasma Treatment of Glass Slides for Fluorescence Microscopy
Glass microscopy slides are typically used as substrates in fluorescence microscopy studies of proteins and single molecules. During these studies, glass slides must be free of organic contamination to prevent unwanted background fluorescence. Plasma treatment removes these organic contaminants without using dangerous chemicals. Plasma treatment also enhances the deposition of surface coatings that can be used to tether single molecules to the slide surfaces. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) or polyethylene glycol (PEG) are commonly used to enable single molecular studies following plasma treatment.
See the sample references below to learn how Harrick Plasma’s plasma cleaners reduce artifacts during fluorescence microscopy imaging.
Plasma Treatment of GlasS Slides for Flourescence Microscopy Articles
Meng, J. X., Zhang, Y., Saman, D., Haider, A. M., De, S., Sang, J. C., Brown, K., Jiang, K., Humphrey, J., Julian, L., Hidari, E., Lee, S. F., Balmus, G., Floto, R. A., Bryant, C. E., Benesch, J. L. P., Ye, Y., & Klenerman, D. (2022). Hyperphosphorylated tau self-assembles into amorphous aggregates eliciting TLR4-dependent responses. Nature Communications, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30461-x
Rodrigues, M., Bhattacharjee, P., Brinkmalm, A., Do, D. T., Pearson, C. M., De, S., Ponjavic, A., Varela, J. A., Kulenkampff, K., Baudrexel, I., Emin, D., Ruggeri, F. S., Lee, J. E., Carr, A. R., Knowles, T. P. J., Zetterberg, H., Snaddon, T. N., Gandhi, S., Lee, S. F., & Klenerman, D. (2022). Structure-specific amyloid precipitation in biofluids. Nature Chemistry, 14(9), 1045–1053. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-022-00976-3
Wollman, A. J. M., & Leake, M. C. (2022). Single-Molecule Narrow-Field Microscopy of Protein-DNA Binding Dynamics in Glucose Signal Transduction of Live Yeast Cells. In Methods in Molecular Biology (Vol. 2476, pp. 5–16). Humana Press Inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2221-6_2
Plasma Treatment of Glass Slides for Microfluidic Device Fabrication
Harrick Plasma’s equipment has been cited in hundreds of articles as a vital step in the fabrication of PDMS-based microfluidic devices. Microfluidic devices are useful in a variety of applications, from point-of-care diagnostics and environmental monitoring to studies of model organisms and food quality control.
Microfluidic devices often consist of a microchanneled layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) atop a glass slide. The glass slide supports the microchanneled layer and allows the device to be easily carried throughout the lab.
Researchers plasma-treat their glass slides and microchanneled PDMS to irreversibly bond the two materials together, forming a watertight seal. This bond is created by the formation of silanol (SiOH) groups during the plasma treatment process.
You can learn more about plasma treatment’s contributions to the bonding of glass / PDMS in the selection of articles below.
Glass Slides & PDMS Microfluidic Device Articles
Chen, C., Li, P., Guo, T., Chen, S., Xu, D., & Chen, H. (2022). Generation of Dynamic Concentration Profile Using A Microfluidic Device Integrating Pneumatic Microvalves. Biosensors, 12(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/bios12100868
Greener, J., Harvey, W. Y., Gagné-Thivierge, C., Fakhari, S., Taghavi, S. M., Barbeau, J., & Charette, S. J. (2022). Critical shear stresses of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms from dental unit waterlines studied using microfluidics and additional magnesium ions. Physics of Fluids, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0076737
Huang, C. H., & Lei, K. F. (2022). Quantitative study of tumor angiogenesis in three-dimensional matrigel barrier using electric impedance measurement technique. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2022.132458
Lobban, R., Biswas, A., Ruiz-Márquez, K. J., & Bellan, L. M. (2022). Leveraging the gel-to-sol transition of physically crosslinked thermoresponsive polymer hydrogels to enable reactions induced by lowering temperature. RSC Advances, 12(34), 21885–21891. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2ra02938c
López-Canosa, A., Pérez-Amodio, S., Engel, E., & Castaño, O. (2022). Microfluidic 3D platform to evaluate endothelial progenitor cell recruitment by bioactive materials. Acta Biomaterialia, 151, 264–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2022.08.019
Ly, K. L., Luo, X., & Raub, C. B. (2023). Oral mucositis on a chip: modeling induction by chemo- and radiation treatments and recovery. Biofabrication, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/ac933b
Paduthol, G., Korma, T. S., Agrawal, A., & Paul, D. (2022). Dynamic generation of power function gradient profiles in a universal microfluidic gradient generator by controlling the inlet flow rates. Lab on a Chip, 22(3), 592–604. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1lc00938a
Prabowo, B. A., Fernandes, E., & Freitas, P. (2022). A pump-free microfluidic device for fast magnetic labeling of ischemic stroke biomarkers. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 414(8), 2571–2583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-03915-w
Reynolds, D. E., Lewallen, O., Galanis, G., & Ko, J. (2022). A Customizable and Low-Cost Ultraviolet Exposure System for Photolithography. Micromachines, 13(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13122129
Richard, C., Devendran, C., Ashtiani, D., Cadarso, V. J., & Neild, A. (2022). Acoustofluidic cell micro-dispenser for single cell trajectory control. Lab on a Chip, 22(18), 3533–3544. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2lc00216g
Shakya, G., Fajrial, A. K., Ding, X., & Borden, M. A. (2022). Effect of Thermal History and Hydrocarbon Core Size on Perfluorocarbon Endoskeletal Droplet Vaporization. Langmuir, 38(8), 2634–2641. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c03350
Soni, P., Anupom, T., Lesanpezeshki, L., Rahman, M., Hewitt, J. E., Vellone, M., Stodieck, L., Blawzdziewicz, J., Szewczyk, N. J., & Vanapalli, S. A. (2022). Microfluidics-integrated spaceflight hardware for measuring muscle strength of Caenorhabditis elegans on the International Space Station. Npj Microgravity, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-022-00241-4
Zhang, H., Anoop, K., Huang, C., Sadr, R., Gupte, R., Dai, J., & Han, A. (2022). A circular gradient-width crossflow microfluidic platform for high-efficiency blood plasma separation. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2021.131180