Dependence of plasma-induced modification of polymer surfaces on polyatomic ion chemistry

The dependence of plasma-induced modification of polymer surfaces on polyatomic fluorocarbon ion chemistry was investigated. The classical molecular dynamic simulations were used for the study. The simulations numerically integrate Newton's equations of motion with a third order Nordsieck predictor corrector using a time step of 0.2 fs. It was observed that larger polyatomic ions C ₃F ₅ ⁺ produced a wider variety of precursors for film growth than smaller polyatomic ions such as CF ₃ ⁺ and thus should be more effective at growing films.