Improvement of the adhesion of a galvanic metallization of polymers by surface functionalization using dielectric barrier discharges at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

An environmentally friendly plasma amination process for the activation of polymers prior to electroless metallization using dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) at atmospheric pressure was investigated. One focus of the work was on the correlation between plasma parameters and palladium coverage on the polymer on the one hand and the palladium coverage and adhesion of a galvanic copper metallization on the other hand. Using XPS spectroscopy it was found that a DBD treatment of polyimide (PI) films with mixtures of N2 and H 2 leads to considerably higher Pd surface concentrations than on untreated reference samples or foils treated in airDBD. The Pd coverages achieved result in peel strengths of a copper metallization of up to 1.4N·mm-1. © 2009 WILEY-VCM Verlag GmbH & co. KGaA, Weinheim www.plasma-polymers.org.