February 10, 2017 - Nordson MARCH introduced its PD Series Plasma Deposition Systems family, which uses plasma polymerization to deposit thin films uniformly during precision manufacturing and assembly processes to change the surface characteristics of a substrate. Plasma deposition can be used for applications in a wide range of industries, including medical, life sciences, industrial, semiconductor, MEMS, plastics, and electronics.
The PD Series for plasma deposition uses a gas vapor or heated liquid monomer vapor delivery system to deposit coatings that can reduce, and in certain cases eliminate, tackiness, provide a tie layer, make surfaces more slippery or resistant to corrosion, act as a drug enhancement or inhibition agent in life sciences applications, and change desired surfaces from hydrophobic to hydrophilic or vice versa. Polymers can be directly attached to a desired surface while the chains are growing, which reduces the steps necessary for other coating processes such as grafting. This is useful for pinhole-free coatings of 100 picometers to 1 micrometer thickness with solvent insoluble polymers.
Three models are available. The PD-1000 and PD-1500 are designed for batch prototype, pilot, or production processing of substrates. The PD-Pro has a large plasma processing cavity to treat big substrates or multiple smaller substrates.