Abstract
The interest in incoherent sources for wavelength-selective photochemistry has increased lately, but little is still known about the behavior of polymers when exposed to far UV and vacuum UV (VUV) radiation. The same dearth of information exists regarding UV (VUV) radiation emitted by low-pressure plasmas during polymer treatment. In order to study VUV-UV effects on several polymers (polyethylene - PE, polystyrene - PS, hexatriacontane - HTC, and poly(methyl methacrylate) - PMMA), we have used the well-characterized emissions from hydrogen (broad-band emission) and hydrogen/argon mixture (near-monochromatic radiation) plasmas as light sources. During irradiation, samples were kept under vacuum or in a flow of pure oxygen at low pressure; in both cases the radiation fluxes at the sample position have been precisely determined by careful spectroscopic calibration experiments. We have employed a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) to measure in-situ any possible mass change of the various polymers. Following irradiation, samples were analysed by ellipsometry (for thickness and refractive index), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, to evaluate the near-surface composition and content of various functional groups), and atomic force microscopy (AFM, for surface topography and roughness measurements).
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