Surface modification of PMMA by DC glow discharge and microwave plasma treatment for the improvement of coating adhesion

PMMA shows poor adhesion for evaporated inorganic coatings. The DC and microwave plasma treatments can considerably increase free surface energy but an improvement of coating adhesion is, according to our results, only possible by the DC process ATR spectroscopy has been applied to investigate the changed chemical structure of DC plasma-treated PMMA. Samples treated by microwave plasma did not show ATR alteration while XPS analysis indicated surface oxygen enrichment.