Effects of Oxygen RF Plasma on Properties of Poly Methyl Methacrylate Polymer

In this work RF oxygen plasma is used to modify the surface of poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) sheets. Samples are immersed in plasma, produced by plane parallel capacitively coupled RF discharge at 13.56 MHz frequency and 25 W powers from 2 to 10 minutes. Modification of the treated surfaces are studied by using attenuated total reflec- tion Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle mea- surement and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy. Based on the results the surface roughness is significantly altered. The water contact angle is decreased noticeably by this treatment. Weight loss per area unit of samples doesn’t increase linearly with time of treatment. Real and imaginary parts of refractive index and dielectric constant of samples are calculated with using the transmission and reflection spectrum of samples. Energy gaps are calculated which indi- cate that with this RF power, energy gaps are not changed significantly.