Structural characterization of sputtered PMMA in argon plasma

PMMA has been extensively studied for the numerous applications in the field of coatings, adhesives, sensors, biomaterials etc. PMMA can be deposited by many techniques viz. plasma polymerization, thermal deposition, RF sputtering, etc. Very few workers have considered the DC sputtering as one of the deposition technique. This study deals with the deposition of PMMA with the DC sputtering, using spin coated PMMA film as a target for sputtering. The DC sputtered polymer films are strongly adhesive to the substrate, due to enhanced surface wettability. This paper reports the DC sputter coating technique of PMMA using argon plasma. The substrate used for the deposition was single crystal n-type silicon of <100> orientation. The sputtered polymer films were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and contact angle measurement.