Distribution of polymer deposition in plasma polymerization. III. Effect of discharge power

Abstract

Distribution of polymer deposition in an inductively coupled rf discharge system is studied as a function of level of discharge power with acetylene and styrene as monomers. When a fixed flow rate is used, the discharge power has a relatively small effect on the pattern of distribution of polymer deposition as long as values of W/FM, where W is discharge wattage, F is flow rate, and M is molecular weight of monomer, are maintained above a critical level to maintain full glow in the reaction tube. It has been shown that plasma polymerization of two monomers which have different molecular weights can be compared in a fair manner by selecting conditions to yield similar value of W/FM.