Plasma press for improved adhesion between flexible polymer substrate and inorganic material

A novel adhesion process called "plasma press" has been investigated for achieving stronger bonding between two different materials. It was first developed to be applied in multilayer flexible printed circuit boards for next generation flexible mobile electronics. The plasma process is a hot pressing method employing plasma between the two materials in order to activate the material surfaces. Compared to the conventional hot-pressed sample, the plasma-pressed sample exhibited up to 130% higher adhesion strength. The stronger bond strength achieved in the plasma-pressed sample is attributed to the formation of active carboxyl functional groups and dangling bonds on the material surfaces by the presence of the plasma during the hot pressing process for bonding.