Surface treatment

Surface treatment comprises all steps and processes for implementation of the following effects:
cleaning, roughening, activation, etching, polishing, structuring, oxidising, burnishing, hardening, coating.
The term “coating” in turn comprises a large number of processes such as
painting, printing, laminating, bonding, applying protective layers (DLC, HMDSO); photoresist, oxidising,hydrophobic, hydrophilic coats. Most of these effects can be achieved with mechanical or wet-chemical processes. However, plasma processes are available as well for all these effect; they have a number of advantages and sometimes they are the only technically viable solution. Surface roughness with roughness depths in the nanometre range achieved by Plasma processes are particularly good for coating even in the smallest cracks and undercuts and for achieving an accuracy practically to the atomic layer. A special advantage of dry treatment in plasma is that it does not require any labour-intensive and costly transport, storage, handling and disposal of hazardous chemicals.